1. When Pocahontas, daughter of Algonquian chief Powhatan, met King James I in England, he chided her husband, colonist John Rolfe, for having dared to marry a royal.

True. Or at least, he is recorded as doing so in colonist Robert Beverley's 1705 The History and Present State of Virginia, today a major resource in early Virginian and colonial history. Beverley gives a full account of Pocahontas's story (though historians debate its accuracy). According to Beverly, in England,

"Pocahontas had many Honours done her by the Queen . . . she was frequently admitted to wait on her Majesty, and was publickly treated as a Prince's Daughter; she was carried to many Plays, Balls, and other publick Entertainments, and very respectfully receiv'd by all the Ladies about the Court. Upon all which Occasions she behaved her self with so much Decency, and show'd so much Grandure in her Deportment, that she made good the brightest Part of the Character Capt. Smith had given of her. In the mean while she gain'd the good Opinion of every Body, so much that the poor Gentleman her Husband had like to have been call'd to an Account for presuming to marry a Princess Royal without the King's Consent . . ."

2. Queen Lili'uokalani, forced to abdicate her throne in 1893, was the last female royal of the Hawaiian monarchy.

False. Upon coming to the throne in 1891—following the death of her brother, King Kalakaua—Queen Lili'uokalani appointed Victoria Ka'iulani Cleghorn, her half-Scottish half-Hawaiian niece, as Crown Princess of Hawaii. Born in 1875 and educated in the UK, Ka'iulani spent the latter part of her short life advocating for the restoration of her country's independence. She died of illness in 1899, at the age of 23—shortly after the U.S. officially annexed Hawaii. The Hawaiian royal line continues today, but Ka'iulani was the last princess appointed while the monarchy held political power.

3. One female sachem (an Algonquian tribal chief) took part in the bloody 1675-1676 conflict between New England colonists and Native Americans known as King Philip's War.

False. Two female sachems took part in King Philip's War. The most famous is Weetamoo, sachem of the Wampanoag tribe called the Pocassets and sister-in-law of Metacom, sachem of the Pokanoket. Called Philip by the English, Metacom was the Philip of King Philip's War and, with Weetamoo and her tribe, fought against the English. Less famous is Awashonks, female sachem of the Sakonnets. Though she originally sided with Weetamoo and Philip, she later chose to ally her tribe with the English.

4. The marriage of Japanese imperial princess Kazunomiya to the acting ruler of Japan, shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, was a direct reaction to the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa, in which American Commodore Matthew C. Perry intimidated Japan into opening its ports to the U.S.

False. The imperial family objected to the opening of Japan—which had kept its borders largely shut to outsiders for centuries—to the U.S., but the imperial princess' marriage did not take place until several years after the shogun concluded a second treaty, this one with the first U.S. Consul General to Japan, Townsend Harris. The shogunate, essentially a monarchy made up of warrior-rulers, had long held the power of government in Japan, while the traditional monarchy of the imperial family had become largely ceremonial. However, the shogunate's agreeing to open the country to Westerners in the treaties of 1854 and 1858 created a political divide between supporters of the shogun and of the emperor; Kazunomiya's marriage to Iemochi in 1862 was meant to bridge this divide.

1. What president's wife first spoke on national radio, broke precedent by inviting noticeably pregnant women to stand with...

Lou Hoover.

2. Several First Ladies were widely known as counselors to their husbands, but which one engineered her husband's run for ...

Helen Taft.

3. What First Lady was the first (and only) woman to have married a President in a White House ceremony?

Frances Cleveland.

4. What president's wife was the first to descend into a mine?

Julia Grant.

5. What president's wife was the first to invite spirit mediums to the White House to conduct séances?

Mary Lincoln.

6. Who was the first woman to see her husband being sworn in as President? A famous writer described her as "a fine, portly...

Dolley Madison.

7. Who was the first woman widowed as First Lady to be present for the inauguration of her husband's successor?

Jacqueline Kennedy.

1. A statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. stands on a pedestal engraved with these words: "His dream liberated [. . .] from itself and began a new day of love, mutual respect, and cooperation." Which city fills in the gap?

a. Birmingham, AL

The statue stands in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, AL. The park, which predates the civil rights movement, was used by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a staging point for nonviolent protests in 1963. Protesters, many of them local schoolchildren, massed here to organize for sit-ins, boycotts, and marches; in the streets around the park, law enforcement officers drenched protestors with fire hoses and menaced them with dogs. Photographs of these events created some of the most enduring images of the movement.

Today, the park contains the Freedom Walk, which leads visitors past a number of statues related to the protests, including statues of the dog attacks and children in jail.

2. A 30-foot-tall black granite pinnacle encircled by spirals of steel rises from a pool of water in front of you. You're standing in front of a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. in what city?

d. Seattle, WA

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park in Seattle, WA, honors the memory of King with an abstract sculpture inspired by his final speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop." No specific event in the civil rights movement or in King's life took place at this location; like memorials, events, and other observances nationwide, the Memorial Park sculpture, by Seattle artist Robert Kelly, reminds the surrounding community not of specific historical events but of the assumed spirit of King's life and of the civil rights movement.

3. A well-muscled African American man, wearing only a loincloth, holds his newborn up to the sky. Which city are you visiting now?

d. Atlanta, GA

Sculptor Patrick Morelli's BEHOLD stands in the Peace Plaza in Atlanta, GA. Around the plaza range sites important in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., including his birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached as co-pastor with his father. Newer sites also surround the statue and plaza: The King Center, the location of King's tomb, founded by King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visitor Center, maintained by the National Park Service.

4. Surrounded by trees, you walk from one upwelling of water to the next. Each small fountain, set back into a semicircular niche of stone, commemorates a martyr to the civil rights movement. You're strolling through the King memorial in which city?

c. Washington, DC

The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial does not yet exist, but the memorial's design has been completed and ground broken, ceremonially, on the proposed site. When finished, the envisioned four-acre memorial will be positioned along the edge of the Tidal Basin, along a sightline stretching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial. Difficulties and controversy have dogged the memorial's progress, including backlash when Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin was chosen to carve the nearly-three-story-tall statue of King that will anchor the memorial.

1. A steadily growing number [of women] were entering the professions of medicine, law, education, religion, and the various fields of science and engineering. More and more were occupying positions of leadership in business and government formerly held only by men.

The above textbook excerpt on feminism and the post-World-Wars women's movement dates from:
a. 1966

This excerpt comes from Harcourt and Brace's Rise of the American Nation, by Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti. The excerpt has a tone of optimism—more and more women, the text says, were and are entering male-dominated fields. This excerpt also reveals which career fields the 1966 authors considered previously barred to women.

2. In some ways, the position of women in American society was worse in the 1960s than it had been in the 1920s. After forty years, there was a lower percentage of women enrolled in the nation's colleges and professional schools. Women were still relegated to stereotyped occupations like nursing and teaching; there were few female lawyers and even fewer women doctors.

This textbook excerpt on feminism and the women's movement dates from:
c. 1995

This excerpt comes from HarperCollins' America Past and Present, by Robert A. Divine et al. Contrast this excerpt with that in Question 1. By 1995, HarperCollins' textbook authors see the 1960s not as a period of "steady growth" in women's rights, but instead as a time in which such opportunities decreased. What changed? Certainly not events themselves. Perhaps contrast between conditions for women in 1995 and in the 1960s made the 1960s seem backward by comparison. Perhaps the different authors interpreted the same cultural trends differently. Or perhaps authors drew upon different data to create the narratives.

3. With his great popularity and shrewd handling of Congress, Reagan soon got much of his economic program passed. The final bill included $39 billion in tax cuts and a 25 percent cut in income taxes. The results of Reaganomics, however, were not quite what the President had hoped. Spending cuts, together with high interest rates, brought inflation down, but at first the cure was painful.

This textbook excerpt on Ronald Reagan's presidency dates from:
b. 1999

This excerpt comes from Glencoe McGraw-Hill's American History: The Modern Era Since 1865, by Donald A Ritchie. Contrast this excerpt with the excerpt in Question 4. In 1999, a decade after Reagan's presidency ended, this textbook's author could look back over the whole of Reagan's term and draw conclusions about the success or failure of Reagan's policies.

4. [Reagan] promised economy in government and a balanced budget, and he committed himself to "supply-side" economics, or tax reductions to businesses to encourage capital investment. But while he planned to slash federal spending, Reagan also pledged to cut income taxes and boost the defense budget—a feat John Anderson said could only be done with mirrors.

This textbook excerpt on Ronald Reagan's presidency dates from:
b. 1982

This excerpt comes from Houghton Mifflin's A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, by Mary Beth Norton et al. Contrast this excerpt with the excerpt in Question 3. In 1982, Reagan's presidency was in its early years, and textbook writers could not yet address his term in office as a neat whole. While it needed to be described—as the inevitable conclusion of the textbook's historical narrative—the recent past resisted easy integration into the text.

(Illinois Congressman John Anderson ran against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Republican primary.)