In recent years, especially since an independent United Nations body has anointed the Great White North as the best place in the world to live, Canadians have increasingly mocked our southern neighbors for their lack of knowledge about our history, customs, and even climate. Well circulated is the story of American cars crossing the longest undefended border in the middle of summer with sets of skis on the roof, their American inhabitants intent on summer exercise in the land of perpetual snow and cold. Or the narrow-minded fixation by cartoon characters like the South Park gang to "Blame Canada" for what ails the U S of A. 

Host Rick Mercer feeds on this theme of Americans lacking knowledge about Canada in his highly entertaining segment, blandly entitled "Talking to Americans", on the critically acclaimed weekly comedy hit show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes". In supposedly random on-the-street interviews with "average" Americans, Mercer consistently shows how little these residents of the land of the free and home of the brave know about Canada and Canadians. Even Texas Governor and Presidential hopeful George W. Bush showed his ignorance when asked to comment on our Prime Minister "Jean Poutine".

These belly-laughs at the expense of average and supposedly well-educated Americans may satisfy some hidden wish to deflate those who purport to be world leaders in just about everything - but how much does the "average Canadian" really know about these United States?

Sure, we know the Hollywood version which regularly inhabits our movie theatres and television screens, and the commercialized version in our magazines and books and on our computer screens, but beneath the surface of sex, violence, drugs and sensationalism, do Canadians know any more about Americans and their history than they do about us and our history?

Should we be so smug, complacent and self-satisfied? This puzzle includes items mentioned in a standard American Grade 8 text America's Past and Promise. How many are common knowledge to our teachers and students?

Blank Crossword
Crossword Answer

CLUES - ACROSS

1. He controlled the oil industry through his Standard Oil Company and became one of the world's richest men.

4. The name of the 1925 trial in which a Tennessee biology teacher was convicted of teaching the theory of evolution.

6. The name by which the South was known in the American Civil War.

8. Initials of the American President who introduced the New Deal and who owned a summer place in New Brunswick.

10. The territory purchased from France that doubled the area of the United States in 1803.

11. Initials of the organization formed in 1909 to secure equal rights for African Americans.

13. The American President who succeeded Kennedy and increased American military involvement in Vietnam.

16. The name used to describe a person who worked in the movement to do away with slavery.

18. Leader of the colonial forces who became the First President of the United States.

20. This Chicago based gangster made a fortune from organized crime during Prohibition.

21. The name of the ship used by the Pilgrims to carry them to Massachusetts in 1620.

23. The American President whose 1947 doctrine promised that the United States would defend peoples from subversion and outside pressure.

24. The name given to the laws passed in the 1890s that made segregation official in public
facilities in the South. 

25. The greatest single battle of the Civil War, won by the Union in Pennsylvania in 1863.

26. The name given to the scandal which led to the resignation of the President in 1974.




CLUES - DOWN

2. This Almanac writer experimented with electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm.

3. This architect of the Declaration of Independence was accused of fathering children of his female slave.

5. This Supreme Allied Commander of the D-Day invasion later became a two term President.

6. Insulting term used to describe a Northerner who moved to the South during Reconstruction.

7. An icon in American history, the site in San Antonio of a military loss to Mexico in 1836.

9. The name of the naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japan which drew America into 
World War II.

12. The American President most instrumental in eliminating slavery.

14. The "College" of delegates from each state who cast the official votes that elect the President and Vice-President.

15. In which city did colonists protest the Tea Tax by dressing as Natives and throwing boxes of tea into the harbor?

17. The American Senator who ruined many careers and reputations in the 1950s by unfairly accusing others of disloyalty and subversion.

19. Considered a traitor during the American Revolution, this former British officer defected to British North American territory.

21. The name of the American President when Britain and the United States went to war in 1812.

22. The site in 1692 of trials that led to the death of twenty people after young girls charged others with practicing witchcraft.






WORD LIST



ABOLITIONIST
ALAMO
ARNOLD
BOSTON
CAPONE
CARPETBAGGER
CONFEDERACY
EISENHOWER
ELECTORAL
FDR
FRANKLIN
GETTYSBURG
JEFFERSON
JIM CROW
JOHNSON
LINCOLN
LOUISIANA
MADISON
MAYFLOWER
MCCARTHY
NAACP
PEARL HARBOUR
ROCKEFELLER
SALEM
SCOPES
TRUMAN
WASHINGTON
WATERGATE