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Sasaki Kojiro
07-21-2010, 00:11
http://www.sporcle.com/games/presidents.php

Fill in the blanks...

I could only get 34 (well, 33 since it gave me a freebie). First 7, last 15, civil war, then....eh.

Not going to try the vice president quiz...

Lemur
07-21-2010, 00:25
Weird, I got 34 as well. I nailed everything up through 1850, and everything after 1923. Clearly I have a spotty patch in the middle.

ajaxfetish
07-21-2010, 00:33
Got 36. I was weak on the ones leading up to the civil war, and the reconstruction ones after Johnson. It got a lot easier when I realized you could do just the last names.

Ajax

Sasaki Kojiro
07-21-2010, 00:36
Got 36. I was weak on the ones leading up to the civil war, and the reconstruction ones after Johnson. It got a lot easier when I realized you could do just the last names.

Ajax

Yeah, that's the only thing that got me Benjamin Harrison...

woad&fangs
07-21-2010, 01:07
39

I only missed
Cleveland(x2), Hayes, Van Buren and Harding. I knew exactly why each of their administrations was important but I couldn't think of their names.

Alexander the Pretty Good
07-21-2010, 01:18
37

Thanks Jonathan Coulton for your presidents song.

edyzmedieval
07-21-2010, 01:42
20. Don't blame me, I'm no US citizen. Got almost all of them on the right side, part from Coolidge, Harding and the likes. And GW and JA.

Louis VI the Fat
07-21-2010, 02:53
Hah!

I got all 46 presidents correct! I also know the party affiliation and policies of all but the most obscure ones! I got the assasinated presidents correct too: Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan. There was an attempt on Theodore Roosevelt too, but he survived. Because of it though, he had to lead America through WWI in a wheelchair.


:study:


pffff.....


That was much harder than I thought it woud be. Got 27. I shall have to brush up on my US presidents. I could somewhat easily fill in the first handful, and all presidents from Herbert Hoover. The century in between is like one big blank.
If it were multiple choice, I could've correctly picked from a list of names many of whom had been a president and who weren't, but not off the top of my head.

Some - Filmore, Tyler, Polk, Harrison, McKinley - I had never even heard of. I also got one Johnson for free. I never knew there had been another president Johnson in the 19th century.

Also, the second quiz that gets ruined for me not knowing which presidents have been assissinated.

Sasaki Kojiro
07-21-2010, 03:07
Some - Filmore, Tyler, Polk, Harrison, McKinley - I had never even heard of. I also got one Johnson for free. I never knew there had been another president Johnson in the 19th century.

I think the presidents just weren't that influential in that time...the us was a bit isolationist, the office wasn't as powerful, and the standard of the time was that they kept quiet. That's what I remember from history class anyway.

Polk had something to do with oregon and settling to the west or the mexican war or alaska or something...

Louis VI the Fat
07-21-2010, 03:27
I think the presidents just weren't that influential in that time...the us was a bit isolationist, the office wasn't as powerful, and the standard of the time was that they kept quiet. That's what I remember from history class anyway.

Polk had something to do with oregon and settling to the west or the mexican war or alaska or something...Alaska - is that president McKinley, of the mountain of the same name?

If for nothing else, he deserves to be remembered for buying Alaska. Me, I'd soooo rub it the Russians in. I'd have a massive billboard up, facing Russia, and counting in big neon letters the total oil exploration profits.

Centurio Nixalsverdrus
07-21-2010, 03:40
Benjamin Franklin was not President? 32/44

I knew Coolidge, Hayes, van Buren, Polk, but forgot Ford, Taft and Jefferson.

Ice
07-21-2010, 03:48
I never realized how many presidents have been pushed into the dustbins of history. I got 29.

Ibrahim
07-21-2010, 05:33
all of them. I even included the two terms of Grover Cleveland :clown:

I even know the presidents assassinated in order, as well as all who died in office in order:

William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William Mckinley, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy

Megas Methuselah
07-21-2010, 05:36
Lmao, hell naw. But I can name my chiefs. They're more important.

woad&fangs
07-21-2010, 06:21
Polk acquired the Oregon territory from Britain, got the entire southwest from Mexico during the Mexican War, and his predecessor took Polk's election as a sign that the U.S. wanted to add Texas to the Union so Texas was added shortly before Polk took office. Polk is by far the most underrated president. He was elected on an expansionist platform and nearly double the size of the U.S. in 4 years.

McKinley didn't buy Alaska. I think that was Secretary of State Seward during the first Johnson administration. McKinley was in charge during the Spanish-American war.

The presidents between Jackson and Lincoln (sans Polk) basically sat around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the country to fall into civil war. That's why no one remembers them. The reconstruction presidents sat around comparing their fancy facial hair and twiddling their thumbs as corruption and corporate powers pulled the levers of government. Teddy Roosevelt restored the power of the Presidency.

Ibrahim
07-21-2010, 06:24
Polk acquired the Oregon territory from Britain, got the entire southwest from Mexico during the Mexican War, and his predecessor took Polk's election as a sign that the U.S. wanted to add Texas to the Union so Texas was added shortly before Polk took office. Polk is by far the most underrated president. He was elected on an expansionist platform and nearly double the size of the U.S. in 4 years.

McKinley didn't buy Alaska. I think that was Secretary of State Seward during the first Johnson administration. McKinley was in charge during the Spanish-American war.

not quite all of the south west; a section of territory was purchased IIRC in the Gadsden purchase of I think 1853. I personally don't like Polk-he may have ben strong, he may have kept his word about expansionism, but man was he one unscrupulous fellow when it comes to how he started the war.

the predecessor was John Tyler; Texas was admitted in 1845. (for all those who don't know yet). :clown:

the Mckinley part is correct: Alaska was called "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox" for that reason.

EDIT: the article on Gadsden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_Purchase

Hooahguy
07-21-2010, 06:30
Sporcle? My entire high school was obsessed with that site last year. In fact, someone even made a quiz that challenged one to name every kid in the school.

woad&fangs
07-21-2010, 06:32
I forgot about the Gadsen purchase but it was pretty minor compared to what Polk got. The only reason it was purchased was for a southern railroad that never got started for political reasons. I think the U.S. and Mexico would have went to war over the Texas boundary at some point. Polk just......sped up the process a bit.

naut
07-21-2010, 07:05
I also got one Johnson for free. I never knew there had been another president Johnson in the 19th century.
Yep. Andrew Johnson. He was impeached for something, I forget what.

Togakure
07-21-2010, 08:09
34. The ones that I missed that I really shouldn't have were James Monroe, James Garfield, and Ulysses S. Grant. The rest I would have never remembered without a refresher read.

It's been 30+ years since I thought anything about most of these, so I guess I didn't do too bad considering, heh. Would have been fun to do this back when I was interested in such things.

Jolt
07-21-2010, 10:12
22. Not bad for a non-American which dislikes American history.

CountArach
07-21-2010, 11:07
I got 21, which I am deeply ashamed of. Somehow I knew of Garfield and Taft, and yet couldn't get Truman, Eisenhower and Carter.

Husar
07-21-2010, 12:27
13.

Just by entering their family names, full name would have been even harder.
Most of them from 1900, WW2 and onwards, only Washington and Lincoln from before that. ~D

Would probably be even harder for me if you asked about german chancellors... :shrug:

What I did find astounding though was that I did recognize almost all of their names once they were revealed though, I expected to find quite a few I'd never heard of before.

pevergreen
07-21-2010, 15:32
After reading the thread, jogged my memory on a few. I doubt I'd go above 8, but I've heard of many more. Just can't name them.

Ibrahim
07-22-2010, 06:38
Yep. Andrew Johnson. He was impeached for something, I forget what.

yep, impeached for trying to Fire Stanton, the secretary of war.

Alexander the Pretty Good
07-22-2010, 07:01
I got 21, which I am deeply ashamed of. Somehow I knew of Garfield and Taft, and yet couldn't get Truman, Eisenhower and Carter.

Taft was awesome.

CountArach
07-22-2010, 09:47
Taft was awesome.
I just remember the campaign slogan "Get on a raft with Taft".

Sasaki Kojiro
07-22-2010, 17:26
taft was from cincinnati and I've been to his museum/old house, I really should have gotten that one...the only thing I know about chester A arthur is that he's part of one of the clues in Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Louis VI the Fat
07-22-2010, 17:59
'Don't be daft, vote Taft'.

TevashSzat
07-22-2010, 20:43
Ah Sporcle......the bane of my Fall Semester productivity.....I distinctly remember being at the library attempting to study with a friend of mine until we stumbled upon Sporcle......we spent four hours that night, a great portion of it spent upon trying to perfect the 150 Pokemon list.....we never figured out how to spell Gyarados correctly (it was the y placement)

Hosakawa Tito
07-23-2010, 20:22
Weird, I got 34 as well. I nailed everything up through 1850, and everything after 1923. Clearly I have a spotty patch in the middle.

Being able to just guess the last names helped me on one *Ben Harrison*,so I scored 38. The first 7 were easy, then I missed Van Buren. Got Tyler only because of "Tippicanoe and Tyler too" slogan. Missed Polk, Taylor, Pierce, Arthur, Harding. The pre Civil War nobodies plus Harding and Mister Insignificant himself, Arthur.

Centurion1
07-23-2010, 20:44
Taft was the fattest president. he got stuck in his tub

A Nerd
07-24-2010, 01:33
41/44

I forgot Filmore, Pierce and Harding! Shame on me!

Craterus
07-25-2010, 16:30
How about someone makes an official Sporcle thread, rather than individual threads for every quiz someone takes a liking to?

I can get all the presidents btw ~;)

Beefy187
07-26-2010, 01:07
I got 11 :creep:
I completely forgot about Nixon..

Centurion1
07-26-2010, 02:41
ill be honest i got all of them but i never would have gotten pierce only learned about him in ap us my junior year.

Louis VI the Fat
07-26-2010, 03:44
I got 21, which I am deeply ashamed of. Somehow I knew of Garfield and Taft, and yet couldn't get Truman, Eisenhower and Carter.I pretty ,uch got the modern ones and the first few as fast as I could type. Then I went completely blank. I knew I couldn't live with myself if I could not name more than some fifteen presidents, so I tried as hard as I could to remember the names. It took me the full ten minutes and a lot of sweat to get 27 of them.

Several of the ones I got were on sheer name recognition alone. Pretty useless when I don't know the first thing about them.


There is a roll call of all the presidents in the, erm, 'Hall of Presidents' attraction at Disneyworld, which I have visited several times. (I am sadly a Disney fan) I had thus expected to do better with the quiz. But I never remember things that I don't understand, or which have no meaning to me. If I can't connect a name to some meaningful information, I won't remember it.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGbgX33ud4

Centurion1
07-26-2010, 03:56
and you say you love texas..........

Louis VI the Fat
07-26-2010, 04:32
My love of all things Texan returns me the manliness points I lose for my collection of Disney Princess dresses.


Which I sow by hand. I look awfully good in them too. Especially in my yellow Belle dress. Cinderella is my favourite though, but blue doesn't flatter me.

a completely inoffensive name
08-03-2010, 09:03
My AP class had my brain shouting what the important issues and decisions were for literally, every, single, presidency but I could not remember some of the names. Kind of annoys me since I could tell you all about the Free Silver vs Gold situation yet blank out about the presidents that presided over it.

Moros
08-06-2010, 20:13
How wierd. Last time I checked there was only one president of the US.