Spin Control: Nothing trivial about July 4th but this quiz

Whether you celebrate July Fourth by putting out your flag, donning red, white and blue underwear or dressing up like a Minute Man, there’s only one way to truly test your Yankee Doodle Dandiness.

Drinking beer? Barbecuing hot dogs? Lighting off illegal fireworks? No – by taking Spin Control’s annual Independence Day Trivia Quiz.

We have it right here, with 13 questions, one for each of the original 13 colonies.

1. Speaking of the original colonies, which of the following is NOT one of them?

A. North Carolina

B. South Carolina

C. New Jersey

D. West Virginia

2. What was the 14th state to enter the union?

A. Vermont

B. Tennessee

C. Kentucky

D. Alabama

3. Where was gunpowder, the main ingredient in fireworks, invented?

A. Rome

B. Greece

C. Egypt

D. China

4, Before surprising the British forces in Trenton on Christmas Day, what river did George Washington and the Continental Army have to cross?

A. Susquehanna

B. Hudson

C. Delaware

D. Chesapeake

5. We celebrate July Fourth as the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Which of the following is NOT part of the nation’s founding document?

A. When in the course of Human events …

B. No taxation without representation …

C. Our repeated petitions have been answered only with repeated injury …

D. A Tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people …

6. Who wrote disparagingly about “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot?”

A. Thomas Paine

B. John Adams

C. Thomas Jefferson

D. Nathan Hale

7. In what state is Valley Forge, where the Continental Army spent the winter of 1777-78?

A. New York

B. New Jersey

C. Maryland

D. Pennsylvania

8. After he was an officer in the Continental Army, but before he was the subject of a hit Broadway musical, what was Alexander Hamilton’s role in Washington’s administration?

A. Secretary of State

B. Attorney General

C. Treasury Secretary

D. War Secretary

9. According to legend, what was the main change Betsy Ross suggested to the flag design George Washington showed her?

A. Put the red stripes on the top and bottom

B. Make the stripes horizontal rather than vertical

C. Make the stars with five points rather than six.

D. Put the blue square and stars on the left rather than right.

10. Star-Spangled math: If you add the stars in the top four rows of the current flag, how many stars would that be? No fair looking.

A. 21

B. 22

C. 24

D. 25

11. What was the name of the fort that was being bombarded when Francis Scott Key wrote the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner?”

A. Fort McHenry

B. Fort Ticonderoga

C. Fort Sumter

D. Fort Bragg

12. Who was the president of the Second Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was approved?

A. George Washington

B. John Hancock

C. Thomas Jefferson

D. George Mason

13. Which of the following Founding Fathers never owned slaves?

A. George Washington

B. Patrick Henry

C. Benjamin Franklin

D. John Adams

Answers

1. D. The area that became West Virginia during the Civil War was originally part of the Virginia colony.

2. A. Vermont, which was briefly its own republic, joined the union in 1791.

3. D. The Chinese are credited with inventing gunpowder in around 900 A.D., and later using it to send projectiles into the air to explode.

4. C. They crossed the ice-choked Delaware River.

5. B. There is a reference to taxes in the Declaration, but this phrase was more of a rallying cry for the Revolution.

6. A. Paine coined the phrase in “American Crisis” published in December 1776 during a low point in the revolution.

7. D. Valley Forge, where the Continental Army spent that winter, is in Pennsylvania.

8. C. He was the first treasury secretary.

9. C. Legend has it that Ross convinced Washington to go with five-pointed stars because they were easier and quicker to sew.

10. B. Two rows of six plus two rows of five.

11. A. Fort McHenry was guarding the Baltimore harbor.

12. B. As president, Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration.

13. D. Washington and Henry had large numbers of enslaved persons. Franklin had some when he was younger but was opposed to the practice later in life.

Adams was opposed to slavery and, of the first five U.S. presidents, the only one never to have owned any.

Scoring

0-2 right: George III

3-5 right: Tory sympathizer

6-10 right: Minute man

11-13 right: George Washington