Riddle Me, Riddle Me, What Is That?
December 1955 | Volume 7, Issue 1
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EmailThese riddles and puzzles which have amused and entertained the Western world for centuries show no sign of disappearing. Each new generation takes to them like a duck to water. In our oral tradition, for example, a riddle which appears in the Sixteenth Century turns up in present-day California: What has eight legs, two arms, three heads, and wings? Of various possible answers, the Sixteenth-Century one is a man on horseback carrying a hawk on his arm. From California the riddle is the same, but the feudal hawk has become a canary held in the hand.
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- American Revolution Center
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- Manassas National Battlefield
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American Association for State and Local History
Why do we need a national nonprofit membership society for American history?
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“Save America’s Treasures” has been totally eliminated—the largest Federal program supporting preservation of such treasures as the original Star Spangled Banner and George Washington’s tent.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
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40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.
