The Slice: What’s the state of our kids’ knowledge of history?

It’s a well known fact that persons of a certain age enjoy being appalled by the ignorance of young people when it comes to American history.

Well, The Slice likes to facilitate a good time. So let’s try this.

1) Locate a youth whose education you find wanting.

2) Read aloud the following statements noting events that may or may not have taken place in 1889, the year Washington became a state.

3) Ask the kid taking the quiz to respond “True” or “False” to each.

Answers are at the end.

1. The Spokane Canaries lose the third-ever Stanley Cup Final to the Montreal Maroons, four games to three.

2. Stoddard King invents the microprocessor.

3. Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania.

4. Louis Davenport changes his name to Louis C.K.

5. Spokane’s first woman mayor, Dina Napoli, is attacked by wolves in Peaceful Valley.

6. Dick’s Hamburgers begins as a tamale stand near the current site of the Looff Carrousel.

7. C. Michael Archer is the first editor of the Spokane Falls Gleaner & Repository.

8. A troubled circus aerialist named Milt Priggee goes on a noontime shooting spree in downtown Spokane.

9. Spokane Mayor Bob Glatzer vetoes a board of alderman proposal that would have required city residents with household incomes below a certain level to reside in either the Potterville neighborhood or the Dickensian Village public housing project.

10. Expo ’89 runs from May to November with a theme “White is Right.”

11. Charles “Trader” Rowe obtains a patent for what would later come to be known as the yard sale.

12. Matt Santangelo and Casey Calvary develop the first studded tire.

13. Bing Crosby appears in his first feature film, “Monsignor High.”

14. The Manito & Mead railroad connects Spokane and Deer Park.

15. First recorded utterance of “Get off my lawn!”

Answers: All are false except for 3.

Today’s Slice question: What was the most interesting thing about Benjamin Harrison, president when Washington became a state on this day in 1889?