just our community but to our country in a whole set of the things that i've done over the past couple years has looked at the first of the city and this area many medal of honor winners that we have as well as the other issues that have taken place where during the past year it's been important because of the fact we've had an unusual election the first time that a all minority has ever been named president which has been  different for any country in the world as we know it at least western power and we have a hundred billion dollar stimulus package that has just gone through we have a war that cost approximately four hundred billion dollars a year to run we have an illegal immigration problem that cost us about the same about four hundred billion so when we look at all these things there's a lot of things that we have to pay attention to that i don't want to go into the bigger issues at this point because they could take up an entire program themselves what i want to do today is look at smaller questions but question is just as important things that in fact i've had a interesting situation where i've been working for the last couple years and the the situation is that many people don't know some of the questions that we're going to be talking about this morning part of the problem is if you live in a foreign country for example in england and if you go three or four hundred miles you expect you know everything to be different different language different money at times that in fact what happens here is we expect everything to be the same in local area the graduation rate for example is close to  hundred percent after four years of high school in the hampton roads area of virginia though that percentage drops to around between fifty to sixty percent after four years so you can see that there is a lot of education that gets missed in the process the program today we're going to be talking about is that that in fact talks about some of these basic questions i happen to you know my day job got confused with my idea of being a social studies teacher so whatever i'm working i many times just bring up questions to the employees that i you know that i worked with and found that many of them didn't know these basic questions about our country so after going to do a little program on it bring up some of the questions with the searchers and to see you know how we do here you know once again i have faith that our school system seems since i'm a graduate of the peterson college of school system that in fact you'll probably know most of the answers but i think it will be a journey worth taking the first question that we have today the stripes on our flag represent ok and you have three answers here the original thirteen colonies that rebelled against the british the thirteen original indian nations that were here when the settlers arrived their original thirteen individuals that met discuss breaking away from england for an idea that francis scott key came up with while writing the star spangled banner but once again this is not a doll in program so you can't really doll it and give the answer i'm going to give it to you the meaning o our flag as far as the colors themselves originally didn't have the meaning the meaning came from the official seal and if you look at the upper right hand side that was the first drawing of the official seal of the united states trask thompson secretary of the continental congress reported to congress and the seal the colors on the seal stated that the pedal that's that large glue area at the top the next question that we have for you today what is the usual date that you can fall taxes under the i r s program february fifteenth march fifteenth april fifteenth the may fifteenth  again as it is i bring this up i have to know copyrighted by the idea that these are questions that i ask our employees and in fact many of them did not know the answer and the answer is of course april fifteenth there are two major political parties in the united states today moderate and socialist some would think liberal and conservative republican and democrat independent and green and the answer is of course republican and democrat members of the house in the senate in fact have to run for office often ok and one of the most unusual you ask the people who you vote for of course you ask the voting public how often they have to vote for these people many times they don't know and in fact one of the questions that we have for you today is how long are the members of the u s house of representatives elected for six years four years three years or two years and the answer is in this case two years all right they says these they met they may seem simple they may seem easy but in fact as you see as we get on all one of the things that are interesting about these questions that many of them are the questions that are asked for people that are applying for citizenship so whatever you know that you know these answers then you know have the idea what these folks have to go through to in fact become american citizens the next question that we have for you today what to bodies of our system make up congress all right the judicial and executive branch the supreme court in the senate the house and the senate the upper and the lower house of parliament whatever  asked this question and a few colleges they found out that the answer was incorrectly stated as the upper and lower wholesome parliament the correct answer of course is the house and the senate many times we take for granted names that we've heard you know things that had come up for example wasn't too long ago that words like microwave oven cell phone things like that weren't even in the english language so one of the things that i  was asking questions about is how long has the term for the president's home in washington been around and what was it and you see that the  the name of the president's home theodore roosevelt was the one who named it in one thousand know one as the white house it had previously been known as the president's palace the president's palace an executive mansion ok so these are really said these are things that we take for granted once in a while that whatever the congress met years ago that they named the house and that was it that was the extent of it the next thing we seem to have a hard time with today with the economic stimulus package and everything else is what kind of economic system does the united states actually have are is it based on what kind of the free market or capitalist system the traditional market system the democratic socialism system or the kids in the economic system and if you were talking in the forty's and fifty's kinsey and may in fact be the system you were talking about but actually in today's market it is still considered free market or capitalist when we talk every day we talk about we have certain rights we have certain duties and in fact some of those rights and duties include our requirements as a citizen of the country ok and when we do talk about our rights what are our rights what are our requirements as a citizen ok so when we talk about these what are those things we are legally bound to do all right the next slide we'll about what is the duty of the american citizen and this is in fact one of the questions on the exam for becoming a citizen all right is our duty to obtain a free education it is our duty to work wherever we want it is our duty to serve on a jury or is our duty to be protected by our court system this isn't a simple as it may sound ok an american must obey the laws passed by congress and the and the local legal system serve as a witness if asked i e by a subpoena and the third one is most important must be able to serve on a jury and this is one of those that no employer can stop you if in fact you receive a summons to serve on a jury that in fact it is a requirement by law that you meet that requirement one seems to be interesting because many of the people don't understand what requirements are as far as holidays are concerned we in this country and the school for example you have a teacher in service days you have days off for christmas you have days off for easter maybe or spring the holiday they seem to get confused with what are the national holidays and so i want to the next questions that i have for you today is what are the national holidays the answer to this question of course if you're looking at thanksgiving it is a national holiday but columbus isn't necessarily recognized states in the union veterans and independence day are two days that are considered national holidays are christmas and easter once again these are more religious holidays we do happen to have the opportunity to celebrate them and memorial on guy fawkes day mo moral day certainly is a national holiday but guy fawkes day is a day that is celebrated not in this country but in england all right and we're going to look at that for a second i realize that once again it's just just the opportunity to in fact review some of these things from time to time our guy fawkes was a member of a group it was a catholic organization back in the sixteen hundreds that in fact tried to kill the king of england based on his religious preference and they were supporting the protestant church in england at that time and this is interesting because of the fact that guy fox is in fact the premise for the movie that has been out recently v for vendetta this is the same premise on that movie that they tried to blow up parliament and this guy fox was in fact was the person that was loaded with the responsibility of lighting the dynamite blow up parliament  is the day the celebrated throughout britain for the purpose of dealing with the guy fox holiday and that is something that is still to this day served as a holiday in britain or the great britain the uniform holidays bill one thousand nine hundred eighty eight as amended was the one that specifically talked about the holiday as you see on the slide new year's day memorial day independence day veteran's day labor day thanksgiving and christmas are what considered national especially those that in fact are talking about our country began and in fact what the meanings of different things are the next question we have today was what country was a main concern during the cold war germany north korea korea japan the union of soviet socialist republics or cuba ok and this question of course comes down to russia which is the union of soviet socialist republics which is in fact  it today is a small portion of let it used to be a question that we're asking ourselves today is how many senators are there in congress all right this question is is flexible apparently because of the fact that some senators are not seated they are trying to get a senate position  for the district of columbia they have one one senator that looks like he was just put into the senate it looks like he might be leaving pretty soon because of his actions so in fact there's there's a lot of questions for this but the answer the correct answer is there are one hundred there are two senators for every state in the union voting age as you see by the next now you don't see why the next slide because i just messed that up but any of the minimum reading age is eighteen already it used to be twenty one not too long ago all right least i like to think it was not too long ago what is the minimum age to be president of the united states once again i don't have a slide for this i actually skipped ahead a couple slides so we're going to just talk through this the minimum age to be president is it thirty thirty five thirty eight or forty and i noticed by the folks behind the cameras here that they think they know the answer and the answer is thirty five all right that's the middle age all right by the next slide we actually do have who was the first president of the united states this seems to be a simple question that answer but in fact once again working with the workforce that i had in fact approximately thirty percent of them got it wrong ok needless to say the first president of the united states was george washington ok now this seems to be a little harder question which were three of the your original british colonies maryland and pennsylvania lives three original colonies were new york and maryland being a civil war boss this always interested me that was the name of the where fought between the north and the solve was that the were against northern aggression the civil war the  matter of fact there's a list of all of the names for the civil war it depends upon whose side you were talking from most of these are looking at it from the south of course well you'll see the war for constitutional liberty the second american revolution the second were for independence were to suppress yankee arrogance i always like that one but in fact they had over  hundred thirty different names depending upon what newspaper read up the article where it came from mississippi or virginia pennsylvania new york where fact what side you are talking from if you're from a border state everybody seems to have their own name for it the last one on there the last cause which i thought was really quite interesting it's ok bring you up to a more current situation who w are the united states enemies during world war two was a germany italy in the u s s r china japan and italy japan germany and russia germany italy and japan most of the time japan germany and russia japan certainly was an enemy of ours germany italy and japan is the correct answer during world war two you'll see by the slide the powers the axis powers in the allied powers in fact the made up that world war one of the axis powers which is always surprising to find that actually a couple of them are finland spain and denmark which were actually part of the axis powers as the war went on but they weren't necessarily there because they wanted to be there they were there because they were affected by the military presence of germany usually in that area here's a man that being a geography teacher i in fact enjoy all right that is the most seven point in the united states and its territories all right we think of the united states of being maybe florida maybe parts western dry rocks in florida and the correct answer is rosa terrell and the american samoa that is the southernmost point in all the united states including the territories the other ones kalayaan is the southernmost point in the fifty states always had a hard time pronouncing the next area in hawaii the southern most town in the fifty states and the western dry rocks florida is the most southern point in the forty eight continuous states these are questions that seem to be really important at this time all right what section of government has the responsibility to negotiate to negotiate with foreign governments the president the congress the people or the supreme court well when i deals with our constitution the president has the power to negotiate treaties all right they deal with foreign no he deals with foreign countries and the opportunity to in fact negotiate with foreign governments the next question though is very important because of the fact that section of government has the power to ratify the treaty with foreign governments is it the president the congress the people or once again the supreme court and that is of course congress has the power to ratify the tre treaties with foreign governments congress usually deals with anything that affects the internal works of the government all right so want to deal with the banking system when it deals with laws between the states that is all something that's up to congress which is a part of the problem that we're having today they can't seem to agree on too much and that this is this is something hopefully will be worked out simple geography question out of these next elections where it states border canada is it michigan or west virginia minnesota and michigan new hampshire pennsylvania and delaware or montana and oregon ok when they are looking at this once again most of these have at least some connection to the correct answer is minnesota and michigan there are thirteen states that border canada and that includes alaska michigan maine minnesota montana new york washington state work to kota ohio new hampshire idaho pennsylvania and vermont ok so those are all the states pennsylvania actually has about a sixty seven mile area that borders canada which is something leahy said it's always unusual and interesting to find out the next question is something dealing with the twenty fifth amendment of the constitution this of course was ratified after the kennedy assassination because of the fact that there was no clear ascension of power in this country after a president  would have been assassinated or died in office for one reason or another all right so the question here today is and they were a succession for the presidency who is the fourth in line everybody knows about the first one ok if there are no the vice president come moves up the next one will be the speaker of the house ok but we have other other answers here the secretary of justice president pro tem of the senate secretary of state secretary of defense and president of the senate ok in this case if you look down the fourth one would be the secretary of state would be the fourth person after the vice president to in fact take that position and which of these events was basis for the philosophy for the u s constitution federalist papers and statutes of seven hundred seventy three the philadelphia convention or the constitution of france in fact it was the philadelphia convention who is considered the father of the declaration of independence and that would be thomas jefferson all right which is the right or freedom not guaranteed by the bill of rights freedom of press freedom of speech freedom of religion or the right to pursue happiness that answer would be the right to pursue happiness is part of the declaration of independence and not that of the bill of rights who did the u s purchased known territory of louisiana spain england france and mexico the answer would be france all right at courting to what happened during that period of time corruption in government didn't just take place it happened way back when the x y z affair was that kind of situation that we had so please i said what are you looking at history you're looking at these questions take a look at it and see which is what you find to be interesting all right the last question that we had susan b anthony civil rights activist are running out of time still i don't have time to really give go over all of the questions or all the answers but in fact we want to thank you very much and we'll look forward to seeing you soon if you have any ideas or s on the slide now will be an address or an email address that you can in fact e mail me that you m e r r five eight five two three at hotmail dot com if you have any suggestions for future programs like you said what we're going to be talking about there will be stimulus package and other issues dealing with the local population and local area i thank you very much for coming today and look forward to talking in the future