History competition draws nearly 200 New Jersey high school students
Saturday December 7, 2013, 11:43 PM
BY REBECCA BAKER
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — The boys dominated the first round, buzzing in with right and wrong answers, but then 14-year-old Mollie Bakal of Upper Saddle River — got on a roll.
JENNIFER BROWN / SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
Jack Mehr of Metuchen, left, and Ben Bechtold and Thomas Cleary both of Ridgewood, competing in the semifinals of The National History Bee on Saturday at Ridgewood High School.
“Pennsylvania!” Correct.
“James!” Correct again.
Test your knowledge of history
Here are sample questions from Saturday’s Northern New Jersey History Bee and Bowl at Ridgewood High School.
1. Which classic movie starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino depicted a fictional New York mafia family?
2. Who replaced Thurgood Marshall as the second African-American justice of the Supreme Court?
3. Which state was the site of the non-violent border conflict between the U.S. and British Canada known as the Aroostook War?
4. Which tsar of Russia freed the serfs, but was later assassinated in 1881?
5. Just days before his successor took office, this president signed an Indian Appropriations Act into law that caused a land rush in Oklahoma. Due to obstruction of the delivery of mail, this president ordered federal troops to intervene in the Pullman Strike. This president repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in response to the Panic of 1893, which ruined his second term. For 10 points, identify this president whose two terms were interrupted by Benjamin Harrison.
6. The first African winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Albert Luthuli, was a member of this ethnic group. This group won the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in a namesake war against the British. Earlier, they used the iklwa spear and the “buffalo horns” formation to initiate the mfecane or “crushing” after they were united by Dingiswayo. For 10 points, identify this South African ethnic group which enlarged its territory under Shaka.
Answers: 1: The Godfather; 2. Clarence Thomas; 3. Maine; 4. Alexander II; 5. Grover Cleveland; 6. Zulu.
“Penicillin!” Another right answer.
The Bergen County Academies ninth-grader ended the round with a smile and finished strong as one of nearly 200 students who spent much of Saturday at Ridgewood High School testing their knowledge of the recent and ancient past at the Northern New Jersey History Bee and Bowl.
The bee, for individual students, and the bowl, for teams, are part of a national history competition founded by David Madden, a 1999 graduate of Ridgewood High School who went on to Princeton University. Madden knows a thing or two about tournaments: His 19-day winning streak on “Jeopardy!” in 2005 remains the second-longest run on the quiz show.