Exercise: Recognizing common knowledge 3

In each of the following items, decide whether the statement can be considered common knowledge. If it is common knowledge, click “Common knowledge.” If the statement would require a citation, click “Requires citation.”

Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. If your instructor has assigned this exercise set, you must answer every question before your answers will be submitted to the gradebook.

1 of 10

The flu pandemic of 1918 killed 25 million people worldwide within a period of six months; the total death toll from the virus is estimated at 50 to 100 million.

2 of 10

Steven Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when he was 21 years old.

3 of 10

The 1971 Nobel Prize for Physics went to Dennis Gabor for his invention of holography, the art of reproducing images in three dimensions.

4 of 10

All warm-blooded mammals are susceptible to the rabies virus, which attacks the central nervous system and is almost invariably fatal.
All warm-blooded mammals are susceptible to the rabies virus, which attacks the central nervous system and is almost invariably fatal.

5 of 10

Some have theorized that during his study of alchemy, Sir Isaac Newton may have contracted mercury poisoning, a condition that could explain his eccentric tendencies late in life.

6 of 10

In Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch describes the education and early career of Martin Luther King Jr.
In Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch describes the education and early career of Martin Luther King Jr.

7 of 10

Egypt nationalized the company controlling the Suez Canal, an important shipping route, in 1956.

8 of 10

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address urged listeners “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address urged listeners “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

9 of 10

Daniel Kahneman, a psychology professor at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.

10 of 10

The “frontier thesis” argues that the existence of open land and wilderness in the American West influenced the development of the United States.