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Embarrassing Chapters in US History, Part 4

In no particular order and not by any particularly popular demand, we bring you part 4 in the series.
The identification and ranking of these events as embarrassing is subjective. But the clues are factual. Get over it and just try to get the right answers.
I'm not saying that other countries are any better. Most of the time they're actually worse. But this is a quiz about US history. Get over it.
Quiz by kalbahamut
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Last updated: September 17, 2018
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First submittedJanuary 4, 2015
Times taken1,117
Average score63.6%
Rating2.46
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This scandal, which shares a name with a popular and incredibly stupid film franchise, convinced most of the country that the ATF was intentionally letting guns get in to the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Fast and Furious
The Obama administration fails to defend itself or address the above fallacy, for fear of angering this embarrassingly influential gun manufacturers' lobby group.
NRA
4 unarmed students are killed and 9 wounded when the National Guard fires on a crowd of protesters at this Ohio university in 1970.
Kent State
The US Army under General Custer is routed by indigenous tribes at this battle in 1876.
Little Bighorn
Reckless Wall Street investment and speculating practices result in a massive stock market crash and worldwide economic depression in 1929 during the presidency of this businessman.
Herbert Hoover
Apparently not having learned their lesson, decades of banking deregulation leads to a similar crash in 2008, the last year of this man's presidency.
George W Bush
In 1814 following the Battle of Bladensburg, this city is captured and burned by the British.
Washington, DC
Some say the launch of this satellite in 1957 signaled that Americans had lost the space race.
Sputnik
In 1865 this man assassinates President Abraham Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth
And in 1963, this man assassinates President Kennedy;
though 50 years later some people still aren't convinced.
Lee Harvey Oswald
On September 11th, 2001, this terrorist organization successfully murders 2,977 civilians.
15 years later, some people still aren't convinced.
Al Qaeda
In a completely masturbatory gesture, and as one of its first official acts, the 112th Congress in 2011 takes up time for an out-loud reading of this document. References to Slavery and Prohibition are edited out of the version read.
Constitution
After years of lowering the bar to make way for shows featuring Jerry Springer, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and Kim Kardashian, this overweight child beauty pageant contestant becomes the star of her own "Reality TV" show in 2012.
Honey Boo Boo
Flabbergastingly, the above show originally airs on this network.
The Learning Channel
This low-budget and mind-numbingly retarded horror film becomes immensely popular and kicks off the faux "found footage" craze in 1999.
The Blair Witch Project
Followers of messiah David Koresh burn to death on a compound in this Texas locale in 1993.
Waco
Stella Liebeck successfully sues this company for $3 million after burning herself with hot coffee in 1994.
McDonald's
In response to French opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Congress elects to rename french fries served in its cafeterias to this.
Freedom Fries
In 2005 this state's board of education votes to give equal time to the "theories" of "Intelligent Design" and Evolution. Fortunately they overturn this decision by 2007. But still...
Kansas
In 1992 President George HW Bush vomits on the prime minister of this country.
Japan
Having surpassed China and Russia sometime in the early 21st century, the USA becomes the #1 country in the world in terms of the rate of this.
Incarceration
And finally, because there's simply no words for this I'm pasting the whole thing, the Republican party of this state includes as part of its 2012 platform the following statement:

"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills, critical thinking skills and similar programs ... which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
Texas
+14
Level 33
Feb 7, 2015
"This low-budget and mind-numbingly retarded horror film"... Please don't use "retarded" in this way. It can be a very hurtful word to some people.
+3
Level 82
Feb 8, 2015
I don't buy that we should stop using words because some group of people has decided that they own them and have special privilege to be offended by their use. I'm offended by your use of vocabulary-shaming.
+1
Level 82
Jun 1, 2015
hm..

what gave you the impression I would have liked this movie?

I'm a committed skeptic. I think that probably comes across more than anything else in my comments and quizzes. I don't believe in ghosts, or witches, or gods, or any similar nonsense. Movies do not scare me. Not The Ring. Certainly not Freddy. And absolutely not The Blair Witch- which my cousin and I could not stop laughing through. We were in hysterics the whole time. The movie was just SO cheesy and dumb. The concept that it was "found footage" was ridiculous. And if it WAS actually real footage, then nothing scary or creepy happened in the movie because in real life there are no witches. So I think this dumb concept only works if you already believe in supernatural BS like this. I hated Blair Witch because nothing happens in the movie. The acting is *actrocious*. The script just unbelievably bad. The sound of sticks breaking isn't scary. Piles of rocks are not scary. Getting lost because you threw your map

+1
Level 82
Jun 1, 2015
in the river isn't scary. It's not believable, either. I can't stand any of these found footage movies. They just don't work as a concept and I believe they've been adopted because they're easy to make, you can do one for an extremely small budget, hiring no-name/no-talent actors, with hiring a writer being optional sense there is only the vaguest glimmer of a plot. And it's just so contrived the ways that they keep inventing (dumb) reasons for the characters to film everything.

Anyway... I hated this movie and there's no amount of chances I could give it that would change my mind. But I'm happy that you enjoyed it. Best thing I got out of it was that my friends and I for years could say any random line from the film and everybody would just bust out laughing. My favorite was probably "it's the SAME LOG!!!"

+1
Level 82
Jun 1, 2015
oh, and forgot to say.. it's not because I lack imagination it's because I like films that are well made, that have a strong narrative or interesting direction style, good character development, an interesting story to tell etc. Blair Witch had NONE of that... it was just supposed to be spooky. And to be spooked by this movie you don't need an imagination you need to be afraid of things that don't exist (and also be able to ignore the horrible acting and script which both take you out of what's happening on screen).

I hate scary movies that have nothing to say, no good story, no interesting characters, just... trying to scare you or gross you out. I hate the Saw movies. Just disgusting torture porn. Or Hostel. Even worse. I hate movies like The Ring or The Grudge that only exist to creep you out, even though I respect their attempts at telling something like a story. I hate the ones that try to make you jump and nothing else.

+2
Level 82
Jun 1, 2015
Since I don't get scared at movies... there has to be something more than jumps, gore, or general spookiness. I liked Scream because it was irreverent, self-mocking, fresh and funny. I liked Alien and Jurassic Park because they were well-directed, terse, suspenseful movies with characters we cared about in dangerous situations, and also they were smart sci-fi with innovative special FX. Same could be said of The Terminator, which at its core is a love story. The only movie I can remember feeling a little scared or creeped out by was Fire in the Sky, which I watched probably 20 years ago. Or Poltergeist, which I saw when I was 4. That's pretty much it. Though the bit in Pet Semetary where the kid cuts the man's achilles tendon grossed me out and for years I'd sometimes put my feet on the floor next to my bed and get the willies thinking about it. Still, I didn't like that movie.
+1
Level 75
Jun 15, 2016
I'm with you on the Blair Witch thing - I made the mistake of going to the cinema to watch it so not only did I have to sit through an hour of boredom, watching some morons wander around in the woods and periodically pretending to piss themselves, but I also had to pay for the privilege. Ugh.
+1
Level 67
Apr 29, 2021
My favorite threads are the ones where kal is sparring with someone, then the other person's account gets deleted, and it's just like seven posts in a row of kal arguing with himself.
+1
Level 82
Apr 29, 2021
After 8 years of commenting here, while other members come and go, there's a whole bunch of those. I wish that QuizMaster would change the way that all user comments vanish and instead do that thing other sites do where comments from deleted accounts remain but the name of the person commenting gets replaced with "deleted account" or something like that.
+12
Level 74
Aug 3, 2016
You should do some research as to what actually happened to the woman who sued over the hot coffee.
+1
Level 82
Aug 3, 2016
I'll get right on that.
+14
Level 74
Mar 9, 2017
There's no need for sarcasm. You're calling it "embarrassing." I would've assumed you would do the minimal research before deeming each of these events to qualify.

The woman was 79. She was served a coffee that was around 190 deg F. and as a result, suffered severe third degree burns that required skin grafts, and several years of treatment. She offered to settle for the cost of the medical bills several times. The final amount she actually received, $640,000, was, reportedly, not even enough to pay her medical bills and legal fees. So if you take the two seconds to read past the unsympathetic headlines, you realize that you're demonizing an elderly woman who spent years of her life recovering from a debilitating injury resulting from corporate negligence.

+1
Level 82
May 24, 2019
I actually did look it up many months ago per your recommendation. And while you may have a point I just didn't fel like changing the quiz. It seems like Stella's story was abused by certain politicians, at the urging of their corporate donors, to push for "tort reform" so that it would become more difficult to sue companies for large amounts of money. And that kind of sucks. But I still feel like, even if the story was abused and misrepresented, it points to an underlying fact that Americans do in fact tend to be over litigious. Or... you could choose to look at this incident as embarrassing for spotlighting how corporate interests in the United States can so strongly flavor everyone's opinion (including my own?). I think I'll leave the question as is and leave the object of embarrassment open to interpretation.
+1
Level 82
May 24, 2019
You could also say the embarrassing bit was the criminal negligence of large corporations like McDonald's that would lead to things like an old woman giving herself 3rd degree burns. I don't think the way the clue is worded points toward any one thing being the source of the embarrassment.
+2
Level 51
May 16, 2017
I'm really trying not to read too much into the Kansas question, but it seems you can't accept the fact that billions of people believe in intelligent design.
+4
Level 82
May 16, 2017
First of all, no they don't. Second of all, whether they did or not, they'd still be wrong. Obviously and demonstrably. Truth is not a matter of popular opinion.
+1
Level 51
Dec 25, 2017
But you're right because...well...um...yeah, it's not objective fact that there is no God.
+1
Level 82
Dec 26, 2017
prove it
+1
Level 31
May 4, 2018
Prove there isn't one.
+3
Level 82
May 22, 2018
When people say that you can't prove there is no god the definition for god that they are using is one that is so vague and amorphous as to be meaningless. Yes, of course, if there exists some being that is invisible, that does not interact with the world in any discernible way making it completely undetectable, that has no properties we are aware of or can comprehend... there's no point trying to prove or disprove such an entity.

On the other hand, if you're talking about the Christian god who is very clearly described in the Bible, and if we are to assume that the Bible is a reliable source of information about this character, then we can disprove the existence of that god quite easily with simple logical proofs. The descriptions of the god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus are internally inconsistent and make certain claims about reality, history etc that we know are wrong.

But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about Evolution. Evolution is observable scientific fact.

+4
Level 36
May 22, 2018
Why should the fact that a few biblical literalist morons don't believe in evolution be grounds for introducing a demonstrably false curriculum into schools? Schools are supposed to be secular institutions.
+4
Level 80
Sep 4, 2017
Kalbahamut is literally the biggest dick I have ever seen, in the real world or on the Internet.
+4
Level 82
Sep 4, 2017
*has.

but while I appreciate your admiration of my generous endowment I'm not sure this is the best place to bring it up.

+2
Level 82
May 3, 2018
2016- a reality TV star is elected president. That blows the Honey Boo Boo thing clear out of the water.
+1
Level 58
Sep 29, 2018
have you ever heard the scripture line " there is nothing new under the sun " ? well you kalbahamut epitomize it you quizmasterbator , i can tell you are a "gifted " young person who thinks they are beyond reproach intellectually , you are a fraud ,true intelligence projects humility and concern for others , humble yourself willingly , life has other ways of doing so otherwise , your topics are empty and juvenile and your hatred for America is disgusting , hey i live here and i am no fan of our culture and politics these days , we may be a sinking ship here but we don't need people like you getting your thrill insulting us with your infantile quiz / social commentary / anti intellectual crap , please remove your quizzes and crawl under a rock
+1
Level 37
May 24, 2019
I have often disagreed with Kalbahamut, but I think that his quizzes are generally interesting, entertaining and informative. If you have such disdain for them, your decision should be very simple; just don't take them. There is no need for these fruitless insults back and forth. "Just Say No" to the quiz and let those of us who do enjoy them, take them.
+1
Level 82
May 24, 2019
haha.. I think you're responding to the guy who left the comment just above yours, diva, and to be honest though he left that comment a year ago I never saw it. but thanks for bringing it to my attention so I could properly feel the burn. quizmasterbator... that actually made me laugh out loud. And I'm a young person who hates America now, apparently. Interesting.