Answers for Grades K-3:

1) Mr. Hamilton helped organize New York's first bank in 1783.

2) Jamaican-born John Russwurm was the second black college graduate in American history.

3) “Wampum” was a money system of the Lenapes’ own invention. It was a belt decorated with tiny black, purple, and white beads made from seashells. The Lenape (also called the Lenni-Lenape) used wampum in ceremonies, as diplomatic gifts, and for trading with the Europeans.
4) The moving seats of General Moter’s Futurama exhibit, and the World Fair itself, inspired Walt Disney to create Disney World.

5) The colonists believed that the British government had no right to tax them since the colonists' interests were not represented in Parliament. In protest, many colonists boycotted English products.

6) Irish immigrants were leaving Ireland for the simplest of reasons: they were starving to death. The potato crop was failing, and English masters were taxing away their money. America seemed their only hope.
7) Henry Hudson was looking for a "northeast passage" across the Arctic Ocean.

8) Originally called Long Acre Square, Times Square got its name in the early 1900s when the New York Times moved its headquarters there.
9) Yes, he was. Peter Stuyvesant established order in New Amsterdam through strict new laws.

10) After years of growing conflict between Britain and her American colonies, the American Revolution began out at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

 

Answers for Grades 4-8:

1) Olmsted and Vaux believed that a park was for all the people. It should be a place where rich and poor would mingle. Their winning "Greensward Plan" (Central Park) had a little bit of everything: farm-like meadows, wilderness forest paths, and formal gardens.
2) The Statue of Liberty points east to enlighten European countries (which still had kings and emperors) with the ideals of American democracy.
3) World War II started in 1939 when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.

4) Although Hudson failed to find a shortcut to Asia, Dutch merchants still benefited from his voyage to the New York area. Hudson discovered many opportunities to trade with the natives for furs, which the Dutch prized.
5) Robert Moses had written into the contract for the Triborough Bridge that its tolls would be charged indefinitely; it was the first contract of its kind for a public structure.

6) In September 1664, the British renamed New Amsterdam “New York,” for the Duke of York, the king's brother, who was than running the colony.

7) The goal of the Prohibition Party was to eliminate, or at least limit, the use of beer, wine, and hard liquor.

8) In the 1600s, the Dutch West India Company was more powerful and successful than Microsoft, IBM, or General Motors today.

 9) In 1611, Henry Hudson’s crew put him and his son on a small boat near Newfoundland and cast them off. They were never seen again.

10) Male slaves built the wall for which Wall Street is named.

 

Answers for Highschool:

1) Scott Fitzgerald dubbed the 1920s "The Jazz Age." This hot, new style of music -- with its blend of ragtime, blues, and improvisation -- was the perfect metaphor for Manhattan during this time.

2) The Triborough Bridge was like no other bridge that had come before it because it united three Boroughs of New York: Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens and it remains the largest vertical-lift bridge in the world.

3) Breuckelen was built by colonists to accommodate the growth of New Amsterdam (or New York).

4) The Harlem Renaissance was an important cultural movement because during that time a group of outstanding African-American writers, musicians, political thinkers, and artists flourished in the exciting atmosphere of Harlem.

5) The 18^th amendment of the Constitution stated that, as of 1920, it would be illegal for Americans to manufacture, sell, or transport any "intoxicating liquors."
6) The “New Deal” was a domestic reform program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that used government resources to help the country get back on its feet.

7) New York was originally the colony of New Amsterdam.

8) In a speech at Cooper Union's Great Hall, Abraham Lincoln insisted slavery must not spread to the West. But, he added, in the South it could remain. This combination of principle mixed with "good business sense" won New Yorkers over.
9) By 1865, New York had a new fire department, waterworks, popular newspapers, a world-class Central Park, mass entertainment, and whole new communities of recent immigrants who added to its diversity and energy.

10) In 1919, the U.S. government became worried that a rebellion similar to the Russian Revolution might happen in America. So the government rounded up hundreds of political activists, charged them with suspicion of anarchy and treason, and sent them to Ellis Island. Several months later, they were deported to Russia.