Presidential Trivia Answers (Nov. 7 & 8)

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(1) QUESTION: Inventor Alexander Graham Bell attempted to save the life of which President?

ANSWER: James A. Garfield. The President was shot by an assassin in July 1881, but he didn’t pass away until September 19. During those weeks, his doctor kept probing the wound, looking for the bullet, but he was unable to find it. Bell hoped to make a metal detector that would locate the bullet instead. It didn’t work, but this was at least partially because the doctor thought the bullet was on the right side of Garfield’s torso. In reality, it was on the left, so Bell was looking in the wrong place.

(2) QUESTION: One President had the idea to incorporate a microscope into a walking stick, enabling hikers to get close up looks at items in nature. Which President?

ANSWER: James Madison. Unfortunately, the stick ended up being too short for anyone other than our shortest President.

(3) QUESTION: Which President devised a special clock that would tell both the time and the day of the week? He used it to keep his plantation on track.

ANSWER: Thomas Jefferson. “The Great Clock is driven by two sets of cannonball-like weights,” the Monticello website explains, “which hang on both sides of the front doors. On Sundays the clock is wound with the help of a folding ladder, and the weights are raised to the ceiling. The top ball right-hand set of weights reveals the day and even the approximate hour as it falls past markers on the wall, with Sunday at the top and Saturday at the bottom.”