What can you do while you're waiting? One of my students found a list of 5,000 words and phrases entitled "What Literate Americans Know." Much of it functions as a vocabulary list -- amnesty, amnesia, amino acids. Since I'm more interested in the gaps in your historical knowledge, I've chosen 250 names. Some of them are fictitious, some are ancient, a few (like Elvis) should be obvious. But all of them have some historical significance beyond the obvious one.
Don't assume you know why Pocahontas and Elvis are famous; go read a bit. Most of these people have done surprising things.
Why do you need to know this stuff? Because one day, if you're very lucky, you'll meet a senior partner at a law firm -- and he'll know these things.
| Abigail Adams | Jane Addams | Hans Christian Andersen | Marian Anderson | Susan B. Anthony |
| Johnny Appleseed | Louis Armstrong | Fred Astaire (and Ginger Rogers) | Francis Bacon | P.T. Barnum |
| Alexander Graham Bell | Ambrose Bierce | Humphrey Bogart | Lucretia Borgia | Botticelli |
| John Brown | William Jennings Bryan | Fanny Bryce | Paul Bunyan | Cain and Abel |
| Andrew Carnegie | Dale Carnegie | Enrico Caruso | George Washington Carver | Willa Cather |
| Charlie Chaplin | Anton Chekhov | Chou En-Lai | Winston Churchill | George M. Cohan |
| Confucius | Constantine | Robinson Crusoe | Marie Curie | Salvador Dali |
| Clarence Darrow | Jefferson Davis | Degas | Don Quixote | Doonesbury |
| Fredrick Douglas | William O. Douglas | W.E.B. DuBois | John Foster Dulles | Bob Dylan |
| Mary Baker Eddy | Thomas Edison | Adolf Eichmann | Albert Einstein | El Greco |
| George Elliot | T.S. Elliot | Duke Ellington | Ralph Ellison | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
| Friedrich Engels | Erasmus | Fagin | William Faulkner | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Henry Ford | Stephen Foster | Francis of Assissi | Benjamin Franklin | Betty Friedan |
| Sigmund Freud | Robert Frost | Robert Fulton | Mahatma Gandhi | Greta Garbo |
| Paul Gauguin | Genghis Khan | George Gershwin | Gilbert and Sullivan | Charlotte Perkins Gilman |
| Joseph Goebbels | Herman Goering | Rube Goldberg | Goya | Grandma Moses |
| Ulysses S. Grant | Woody Guthrie | Alexander Hamilton | William Randolph Hearst | Lillian Hellman |
| Ernest Hemingway | John Henry | Katharine Hepburn | Thomas Hobbes | Ho Chi Minh |
| Billy Holiday | Oliver Wendell Holmes | Sherlock Holmes | J. Edgar Hoover | Charles Hamilton Houston |
| Henry Hudson | Victor Hugo | Aldous Huxley | Lee Iacocca | Henrik Ibsen |
| Washington Irving | Andrew Jackson | Jesse Jackson | Stonewall Jackson | Jesse James |
| Joan of Arc | Al Jolson | Scott Joplin | Carl Jung | Franz Kafka |
| Helen Keller | Martin Luther King, Jr. | Rudyard Kipling | Ku Klux Klan | Fiorello La Guardia |
| Mario Lanza | D.H. Lawrence | T.E. Lawrence | Robert E. Lee | Vladimir Lenin |
| Leonardo da Vinci | Charles A. Lindbergh | John Locke | Huey Long | Martin Luther |
| Machiavelli | Dolley Madison | James Madison | Norman Mailer | Malcolm X |
| Mao Tse-Tung | Jean Paul Marat | Marco Polo | Marie Antoinette | Thurgood Marshall |
| Karl Marx | Marx Brothers | Henri Matisse | Senator Joe McCarthy | Lorenzo de Medici |
| Andrerw Mellon | H. L. Mencken | James Michener | John Stuart Mill | St. Thomas More |
| Mother Theresa | Benito Mussolini | Napoleon Bonaparte | Jawaharlal Nehru | Florence Nightingale |
| Oedipus | Omar Khayyam | Eugene O'Neill | George Orwell | Rosa Parks |
| Linus Pauling | William Penn | Peter Pan | Pablo Picasso | Pied Piper of Hamelin |
| Pinocchio | Pocahontas | Edgar Allan Poe | Ponce de Leon | Cole Porter |
| Emily Post | Elvis Presley | Sergei Prokofiev | Marcel Proust | Joseph Pulitzer |
| Sir Walter Raleigh | Ayn Rand | Rembrandt | Renoir | Paul Revere |
| Diego Rivera | Paul Robeson | Robin Hood | Robinson Crusoe | Jackie Robinson |
| John D. Rockefeller | Nelson Rockefeller | Norman Rockwell | Rodin | Will Rogers |
| Eleanor Roosevelt | Franklin Roosevelt | Teddy Roosevelt | Julius and Ethel Rosenberg | Betsy Ross |
| Rubens | Damon Runyan | Babe Ruth | Marquis de Sade | George Sand |
| Carl Sandburg | Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna | George Santayana | Pancho Sanza | Jean Paul Sartre |
| Albert Schweitzer | Dred Scott | William Shakespeare | George Bernard Shaw | Frank Sinatra |
| Sitting Bull | Adam Smith | Bessie Smith | John Smith | John Philip Sousa |
| Dr. Benjamin Spock | Joseph Stalin | Gertrude Stein | Gloria Steinem | Thaddeus Stevens |
| Robert Louis Stevenson | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Peter Stuyvesant | Tecumseh | Henry David Thoreau |
| Jim Thorpe | Alexis de Tocqueville | Torquemada | Sojourner Truth | Nat Turner |
| Mark Twain | Boss Tweed | Typhoid Mary | Van Gogh | Vanderbilts |
| Jules Verne | Queen Victoria | Voltaire | Earl Warren | Danile Webster |
| Noah Webster | H.G. Wells | Orson Welles | Mae West | Oscar Wilde |
| Walt Whitman | Eli Whitney | Tennessee Williams | Virginia Woolf | Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) |
| Frank Lloyd Wright | Andrew Wyeth | Brigham Young | Emiliano Zapata | Emile Zola |
I also selected 150 places and events, plus a few stray phrases. As with the names, they aren't always obvious. For instance, Michigan and Stanford aren't Ivy League schools. Michigan is Big 10 and Stanford is Pac 10. Yes, children, the Ivy League is about football, not quality of education. So even if you think you know what Camelot is, go look it up; I'm sure you'll learn something interesting.
| AFL-CIO | Alamo | Amnesty International | Annapolis | Appomattox |
| Art Deco | Art Nouveau | Auschwitz | Aztec | Bas Relief |
| Bastille | Berlin Wall | Bible Belt | Big Ben | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Black Panthers | Boat People | Boston Tea Party | Bubonic Plague | Julius Caesar |
| Augustus Caeser | Cain & Able | Calvinism | Camelot | Casablanca |
| Catch-22 | Cheshire Cat | Christian Scientists | Cold War | College of Cardinals |
| Colosseum | Common Market | Communist Manifesto | Coney Island | Confederacy |
| Cossacks | Creoles | Cubism | Custer's Last Stand | Dachau |
| Sword of Damocles | Deja Vu | Oracle of Delphi | Dixiecrat | E = MC2 |
| Eiffel Tower | Emancipation Proclamation | Erie Canal | Eskimos | Exodus |
| the Federalist Papers | Filibuster | Fresco | Frieze | Gallup Poll |
| Geiger Counter | Gerrymander | Gettysburg Address | Gordian Knot | the Great Depression |
| the Great Wall of China | Guillotine | the Hague | Harlem | Hiroshima |
| the Hoover Dam | Huguenots | Hundred Years' War | Ides of March | Impressionists |
| Independence Day | the Inquisition | Irish Potato Famine | Ivy League (LOOK IT UP) | Jesuit |
| Jihad | the Jolly Roger | Battle of Jericho | Kamikaze | Das Kapital |
| Kibbutz | Kilimanjaro | King James Bible | Kitty Hawk | Land Grant Institution |
| Leaning Tower of Pisa | Statue of Liberty | Liberty Bell | the Lusitania | Magna Carta |
| Battle of Marathon | Mason-Dixon Line | Masons (Free Masons) | the Mayflower | Mennonite |
| Mona Lisa | Mormon | Morocco | Morse Code | Mosque |
| Motif | National Organization For Women | Neanderthal | Loch Ness Monster | New Deal |
| Nihilism | Cathedral of Notre Dame | Nouveau Riche | Nuremberg Trials | Occams Razor |
| Oedipus Complex | Off-Broadway | Oregon Trail | Pandora's Box | Pearl Harbor |
| Philistines | the Phoenix (not the city) | Plymouth Rock | the Pogroms | the Prodigal Son |
| Puritans | Pyrrhic Victory | Quakers | Q.E.D. | the Reconstruction Era |
| the Reformation | Reign of Terror | the Renaissance | Robber Baron | Rock of Gibraltar |
| the Rough Riders | Rule of Thumb (LOOK IT UP) | Salem Witch Trials | the Scopes Trial | Sharecropping |
| Spanish Armada | Stonehenge | Strip Mine | Fort Sumter | Surrealism |
| Taj Mahal | Thalidomide | Three Mile Island | Tiffany Glass | Transylvania |
| Valhalla | Vichy | the Wailing Wall | Watergate | Yin and Yang |