The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History

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The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History Page 33

by Adam Selzer


  Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, 2009. He actually took it twice; Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed it the first time, so it was redone privately later. Oops!

  WASHINGTON

  ADAMS

  JEFFERSON

  MADISON

  MONROE

  QUINCY ADAMS

  JACKSON

  VAN BUREN

  HARRISON

  TYLER

  POLK

  TAYLOR

  FILLMORE

  PIERCE

  BUCHANAN

  LINCOLN

  JOHNSON

  GRANT

  HAYES

  GARFIELD

  ARTHUR

  CLEVELAND

  HARRISON

  CLEVELAND

  MCKINLEY

  ROOSEVELT

  TAFT

  WILSON

  HARDING

  COOLIDGE

  HOOVER

  ROOSEVELT

  TRUMAN

  EISENHOWER

  KENNEDY

  JOHNSON

  NIXON

  FORD

  CARTER

  REAGAN

  BUSH

  CLINTON

  BUSH

  OBAMA

  WELL

  ACTUALLY

  JUST

  MY

  MAIN

  QUIRKY ACTIVITY:

  JUGGLING

  VICIOUS BROWN

  HYENAS

  THEN

  PORTRAYING

  THE

  FIRST

  PICNIC

  BASKET

  LOOTER.

  JUGGLING

  GORILLAS

  HURTS.

  GET

  ANOTHER

  COUPLE

  HUNDRED

  CHILDREN,

  MAN.

  REALLY.

  THEY

  WORK

  HARD.

  COULDN’T

  HAVE

  REHEARSED

  THE

  ELEPHANTS

  KIDLESSLY.

  JUGGLING’S

  NOT

  FUN.

  CAN’T

  REALLY

  BEAT

  CANADIAN

  BULLFIGHTING.

  OLÉ!

  ASSIGNMENT

  Come up with a better mnemonic for remembering all the presidents; some A+ entries may end up on www.smartalecksguide.com!

  FINAL EXAM

  Note: Under the No Reader Left Behind Act, we have to give you one of these. If you fail, you’ll have to repeat a grade, your teachers will look incompetent, and the Smart Aleck staff will be classified as a failing group of historians and be forced to allow you to transfer to more reputable history books. And to top it all off, everyone will laugh at you.

  We will, however, be lenient about the whole #2 pencils thing. Use whatever the heck you want—heck, use a crayon if you feel like it. It’s also an open-book test, and you can use any notes you may have taken. And chew yourself some gum.

  ESSAY

  What is freedom, exactly?

  What was the Civil War about?

  Who was the best president and why?

  Of all the people who never became president, who would have made the best one? Why?

  Compare and contrast William Henry Harrison to a bug.

  What would Abraham Lincoln have thought of Star Wars—both the movie series and the missile defense program Ronald Reagan was always trying to fund (see other history books).

  Who invented the Franklin stove?

  Would America have been better off with a parliamentary system like most other democratic countries have? Why or why not?

  Find something we completely left out from each of the following decades and write an essay about it:

  1750s (good luck with this one)

  1880s

  1940s

  2000s

  Okay. Just give me the pickle and nobody gets hurt.

  TRUE OR FALSE

  George Washington had wooden teeth.

  General MacArthur was a pain in the butt.

  The Great Gatsby really was a great guy.

  Benjamin Franklin invented the stove.

  Thomas Jefferson is on the quarter.

  Theodore Roosevelt was only four feet tall.

  Andrew Jackson had six fingers on one hand.

  LBJ got a real kick out of showing off his privates.

  Gouverneur Morris kicked butt.

  Franklin Pierce could win in a fight with Millard Fillmore.

  RESEARCH

  Find out about:

  The Hollywood Ten

  The New York Nine

  The Chicago Seven

  The Watergate Seven

  The Secret Six

  PICTURE QUESTIONS!

  Where are these guys going, and what’s that one guy doing on his back?

  What year is THIS flag from?

  Look at the (ridiculously unrealistic) picture (below) of the Battle of Fort McHenry from the War of 1812, then answer me these questions three:

  1. Who’s the guy patriotically ignoring the rules of boat safety?

  2. What’s in the bucket?

  3. Is that a capotain or a stovepipe that that one guy is wearing?

  BONUS QUESTION FOR EXTRA CREDIT

  Do you suppose that when the guy in the picture’s descendant wrote about the Great Gatsby staring at the green light on Daisy’s pier and comparing it to “those Dutch sailors” staring at the “fresh green breast of the new world … face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder,” he might have wanted people to draw comparisons to this picture? Why or why not? And while you’re at it, compare and contrast something, just to prove to us once and for all that you can do it.

  THE END

  So there you have it. History. Now you know it, which puts you head and shoulders above most of the idiots on the street.

  Now go out and make more of it. Maybe someday you, too, can be mentioned in a song like “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

  But first, just pull Uncle Sam’s finger, okay?

  “He’s your uncle, not your dad.”

  —Elvis Presley

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS: Every attempt has been made by the author to give proper credit for images, though all are in the public domain. All uncredited images are also in the public domain. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Boston Public Library; Kai Brinkner; Jason Coyne; Kathleen Cromie; Deedar70; Frederick Ek; Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum; Harper’s Weekly; Jen Hathy; Histroicair; lamvered; Imperial War Museum; Robert Lawson; Library of Congress; Lars-Goren Lindgren; Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum; Maha; Jose L. Marin; Mwaner; NASA; National Archives; National Museum of American Art; National Park Service; New-York Historical Society; Tom Palumbo; Pepe Robles; Adam Selzer; Ronica Selzer; Simon Speed; State Library and Archives of Florida; Sullynyflhi; Tegiiin; Tone; AJ Truhan; Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Robert Zalas, Titan Visuals.

  Copyright © 2009 by Adam Selzer

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Selzer, Adam.

  The smart aleck’s guide to American history / Adam Selzer. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89593-7

  1. United States—History—Miscellanea—Juvenile literature.

  I. Title.

  E178.3.S457 2010

  973—dc22

  2009003897

  Random House Children�
�s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.0

 

 

 


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