Massachusetts Bay Trading Company
Massachusetts Knowledge Quiz #16

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Ninety years ago in 1919, this Boston schemer launched an investment company that purported to make money by buying and selling International Reply Coupons that theoretically held a fixed value from country to country. By the time he realized the Reply Coupons could not be redeemed for currency, he was already promising 50% returns. He was temporarily able to make payouts to early investors with the money he took in from new clients. His ultimate demise touched off one of the worst banking crises in Massachusetts. Whose name is now closely associated with former NASDAQ chairman Bernard Madoff?

Charles Ponzi
Nicola Sacco
Jayson Blair
Martha Stewart

This inventor was on leave from Boston University when he was commissioned to create the “harmonic telegraph” in 1876, but instead invented the telephone. Over the next eleven years, he successfully defended his patent against 600 legal challenges.

Elisha Gray
Thomas Singer
George Westinghouse
Alexander Graham Bell

On a cold April day in 1908, this escape artist stood chained and manacled on the edge of the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge. He tossed himself into the icy river while the large crowd watching along the shore and in nearby boats fell silent until he emerged underneath the bridge, free from the chains. The publicity scheme was a raging success and his show drew record crowds during its two-week run at Boston’s Keith’s Theater.

David Copperfield
Oliver Smoot
Houdini
Siegfried Fischbacher
David Blaine

This oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy takes on visitors daily at the Charlestown Navy Yard. The vessel took on the nickname of Old Ironsides after its wooden sides remarkably deflected a cannon onslaught during the War of 1812.

The Mayflower
USS Constitution
The Santa Maria
USS Massachusetts

Unlike Cod, this entree listed on many Boston menus is not actually a specific type of fish. Many restaurants vary the spelling, inserting an “h” if it happens to be a haddock that day. According to the Omni Parker House, the Boston hotel claiming to have invented the term, it simply means the freshest catch of the day.

Scrod
Cuddle Fish
Chowder
Tripe

Although he lived in Boston for only one year, 1868, this was the site of his first patent, the Electrographic Vote Recorder for tabulating votes in the legislature. It was unsuccessful as the legislators, then as now, preferred the extensive stage time provided by roll call votes over an instantaneous electronic vote. After absorbing the inventive atmosphere of Boston, this inventor had bright ideas in New Jersey.

Isaac Singer
Thomas Edison
Alexander Graham Bell
Elias Howe

This future American president called his legal defense of the nine British soldiers who had fired upon a crowd of 300 and killing five, “one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country”. The event, which took place in March, 1770, became known as the Boston Massacre. Who was this thirty-four-year-old Boston attorney, who understood at the time that taking up the case would subject him to criticism and even risk the safety of himself and his family?

John Adams
Ted Kennedy
George Washington
Sam Adams

In 1972, WGBH Boston was the first TV station to add this feature to their programming, enabling TV to be equally enjoyed by deaf people. Initially implemented in an open style, it subsequently evolved into a closed style that requires special circuitry within the TV set. Today this capability is mandatory in all TV sets.

Sign language
High Definition
UHF
Closed Captioning

A number of recent Academy Award winning films take place in Boston. Which of the following does NOT take place here?

Mystic River
The Departed
Good Will Hunting
No Country For Old Men

This member of Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board was the 27th president of Harvard University and is a former Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton.

Keith Hennessey
Lawrence Summers
Drew Gilpin Faust
Henry M. Paulson

Which of the following was NOT an accomplishment of John L. Sullivan, the renowned “Boston Strongboy” who gained boxing fame at the end of the 19th century?

He was the last heavyweight champion of bare-knuckle boxing
He was the first American athlete to earn over $1M dollars.
He was the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing from February 7 1882 to 1892
The men’s garments known as “long johns” are named after him.
He served as US Secretary of Army

In addition to designing many noteworthy Boston landmarks, Charles Bulfinch was the third designer of this Washington DC building that bears his distinctive look?

The White House
The US Capitol
The Lincoln Monument
The Pentagon

Pure Yankee Ingenuity

Pure Yankee Ingenuity
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