A Military Matter Subject with a Common Bond Quiz

Answer: Boston

The story of Boston's 1976 debut album called "Boston" started in a basement, where MIT graduate Tom Scholz spent years creating a stadium rock sound using his own custom built audio equipment. Working in secrecy, Scholz recorded almost all the instruments himself alongside vocalist Brad Delp, who layered in his own harmonies to sound like a full choir. To get the approval of their record label, the duo fooled executives by delivering these homemade basement tapes as professional studio tracks, later filling out the official lineup with guitarist Barry Goudreau, bassist Fran Sheehan, and drummer Sib Hashian for promotional tours.

The resulting self-titled album went on to sell over 17 million copies.

Answer: Navy

A peacoat is a classic, double-breasted outer coat traditionally made of heavy, dark navy wool. Originally worn by European men starting in the 18th century, it features broad lapels, large buttons, and vertical slot pockets designed to keep hands warm in harsh weather. Its short, hip-length cut was specifically designed to allow men more mobility.

Answer: Live oak

Olmsted, a famous landscape architect, was obsessed with creating scenery that felt grand and ancient. He desperately wanted the dramatic, horizontal arches of the live oak to frame some of Central Park's open lawns. However, the tree's dense and sap-heavy wood made it too heavy to transport affordably by 19th-century rail, plus it could not survive the harsh Manhattan winters.

When reality forced him to give up on it, he substituted the oaks with American elms. They grew well in the northern part of the country and still created that high, overarching "cathedral ceiling" effect that Olmsted was after.

Answer: Paul Revere

Paul Revere was an artisan whose contributions to early America extended far beyond his legendary midnight ride. As a master silversmith and goldsmith, he ran a highly successful Boston shop, crafting elegant tableware and luxury items. He also used his metalworking skills in political activism, becoming a copperplate engraver who produced propaganda prints, like his famous depiction of the Boston Massacre, which galvanized public outrage against British rule.

Revere even applied his precise craft to early medicine; he practiced forensic dentistry by using silver wire and hippo ivory to create dental bridges, notably identifying the body of fallen patriot Major General Joseph Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by the custom dental work he had made for him.

Answer: Copper

Globally, the Copper Age generally occurred between 4500 BC and 3300 BC, lasting for about 1,200 years. It was a transitional period in human history when people discovered how to melt and shape pure copper to make tools and weapons. It served as a bridge between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, marking the very first time humans used metalworking alongside stone tools. Because pure copper is relatively soft, this era lasted only until people learned to mix it with tin to create the much harder alloy known as bronze.

Answer: Canvas

Vincent van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" from the window of his asylum room in France, intentionally rendering the view from memory and imagination rather than direct observation. The blue, white, and black swirling sky and radiating yellow stars were applied using his signature technique.

This is when he used thick, heavy strokes of oil paint and layered them onto canvas. While it has become one of the most recognizable and celebrated masterpieces in art history, Van Gogh himself actually considered the painting a failure.

Answer: Grape

In botany, a true berry is a fleshy fruit that develops from a single ovary and contains seeds embedded directly in the flesh. A grape fits this definition because its entire outer wall ripens into an edible, fleshy succulent that surrounds its internal seeds. By contrast, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are not botanical berries at all. Raspberries and blackberries are called aggregate fruits, which are clusters of many tiny individual fruits formed from a single flower with multiple ovaries.

A strawberry is labeled an accessory fruit with the sweet red part being the receptacle, while the actual botanical fruits are the tiny seeds dotted across its outer surface.

Answer: Washington

Dry Falls is located in central-eastern Washington, just outside a small town called Coulee City. It is a giant, 400 foot (122 m) high cliff that used to be the largest waterfall in the world. During the Ice Age, massive floods roared over these rocks with a river five times wider than Niagara Falls. Today, the water is completely gone, leaving behind a huge, silent drop-off overlooking a dry canyon.

The cliffs are part of Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, located in a valley known as the Grand Coulee, which is a deep 50 mile (80 km) canyon.

Answer: Holmes

During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, H.H. Holmes opened a massive building that covered almost a whole block. It was later dubbed the "Murder Castle" by the press. He designed the structure with a maze of hidden rooms, trapdoors, gas lines, and a basement furnace to trap and kill unsuspecting tourists who came to the city for the fair. Holmes used the huge crowds to lure in victims, largely targeting young women seeking lodging or employment.

While legends grew over time, his horrible actions at the World's Fair made him one of America's earliest and most notorious serial killers.

Answer: USS Constitution

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world today. It was built at a shipyard in the northern part of Boston (Q1), Massachusetts, with construction starting in 1794. It was one of six warships that would become the new United States Navy (Q2).

It had some amazing construction details in the ship. It was made of live oak (Q3), an extremely dense wood. This produced its nickname of "Old Ironsides", coming from the time when an astonished sailor watched enemy cannonballs bounce harmlessly off the ship's live oak hull and yelled out, "Huzza, her sides are made of iron!". Paul Revere (Q4) played a crucial role in the construction and maintenance of the ship by supplying essential metal and brass materials from his foundry. Revere and others also supplied copper (Q5). Thousands of these copper sheets protected the submerged hull from wood-boring mollusks and marine growth, preserving speed and seaworthiness. The USS Constitution boasts 36 primary flax canvas (Q6) sails which cover over 44,000 square feet (4,000 sq m) of canvas area. The ship also can hold up to 44 cannons which are equipped to shoot iron cannon balls as well as grapeshot (Q7), consisting of a cluster of mid-sized iron balls packed inside a canvas bag for close-action damage.

The ship had originally been authorized as "Frigate C" under the Naval Act of 1794. The following spring, Secretary of War Pickering submitted a list of ten suggested names to President George Washington (Q8). Washington personally selected the name Constitution to symbolize the new foundational principles of the United States. After many years on the seas, the US Navy planned to scrap the ship around 1830. Oliver Wendell Holmes (Q9) wrote a poem about the ship that went viral in the era's newspapers and created a massive public outcry. The resulting pressure forced the government to abandon the scrapping plans, ultimately preserving the ship for future generations as a floating museum while still being a fully commissioned, active-duty vessel in the United States Navy.