Can You Pass This Sixth Grade U.S. History Quiz?

Both the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed in the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. The Philadelphia landmark was also where George Washington was first appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army. Due to the building’s pivotal role in American history, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1979.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought the 530 million-acre Louisiana Territory from French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for $15 million. Napoleon had originally planned to use the territory to reestablish a French presence in North America, but with a war looming between England and France, he instead chose to sell the swatch of land to the U.S. to help fund his military campaigns in Europe.

Though Tennessee began as part of North Carolina, which was one of the original 13 colonies, Tennessee was not considered its own separate territory until 1790, when North Carolina ceded it to the national government as a parcel of land known as the Southwest Territory. In 1796, the Southwest Territory was renamed Tennessee and became the 16th state in the nation.

In 1849, news spread that gold had been discovered in California. Soon thousands of people were traveling to California hoping to either mine their fortunes in gold or make a living selling goods and services to the growing crop of hopeful prospectors. The people who came to California in 1849 were given the nickname “forty-niners,” and they transformed California’s economy and society.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington in 1963, a landmark event of the civil rights movement. King’s address, in which he described his “dream” of racial equality in the U.S., was delivered to more than 200,000 people and remains one of the most famous and celebrated speeches in American history.

On December 18, 1620, a ship called the Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, carrying 102 Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in their native England. Before going ashore, the Pilgrims drafted the Mayflower Compact, a document that served as a governmental framework for the new Plymouth colony — the first of its kind in the British colonies.

In 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. It was soon discovered that members of President Richard Nixon’s administration, including the President himself, had been directly involved in the break-in and its cover-up. As a result of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned from the presidency in 1973.

The U.S. entered World War II in 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. entered the war during Roosevelt’s unprecedented third term as President, and he continued to lead the country through the war until his death in 1945, during his fourth presidential term.

The preamble to the United States Constitution begins with the phrase, “We the People of the United States…” The words establish the U.S. as a democratic country with a government that derives its power from its citizens. The laws outlined in the Constitution all follow from this first principle of popular sovereignty.

In 1789, founding father Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. secretary of the treasury. In this role, Hamilton established the First Bank of the United States and oversaw America’s repayment of the debt it had accrued during the Revolutionary War. Hamilton’s financial policies helped increase international confidence in the fledgling U.S. government.

“Common Sense” was a pamphlet written in 1776 by British-born founding father Thomas Paine. It presented Paine’s case in favor of the American colonies’ rebellion against the British. Paine’s writing was hugely influential: It sold over 500,000 copies and inspired widespread public support for the American Revolution.

The War of 1812, a conflict between the United States and Great Britain, lasted from 1812 to 1815. The war was fought mostly in the U.S. and British-controlled Canada, including a British invasion of Washington, D.C., in 1814. It was during this war that Francis Scott Key wrote a poem about the defense of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry that became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. national anthem.

The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,000-mile wagon route that stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, near what is now Portland, Oregon. Between 1841 and 1884, as many as 500,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail across often dangerous terrain to reach America’s Western frontier.

The original draft of the United States Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson in June 1776. After some revisions from fellow founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, the document was presented to Congress, which officially adopted it on July 4, 1776.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. The speech, given shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, addresses America’s founding principles of freedom and equality, as well as its uncertain future. The address was only two minutes long, but has become one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history.