The Certification Magazine home office is closed today in honor of the U.S. holiday of Washington's Birthday (also known as Presidents Day). We'll be back tomorrow (Feb. 18), with more of the all-around IT certification goodness that you crave. Until then, please enjoy the following quiz.

In past years, we've done quizzes about Washington himself, and about the other 44 men to succeed him. There hasn't been a woman president yet, so for this year's quiz, we've decided to write up some questions about the next closest thing: first ladies.

1) Who was the first woman to act as first lady despite not being married to the president?

2) Which first lady, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, met her husband after being assigned to mentor him at the law firm where they both worked?

3) Which first lady temporarily resided at the Octagon House in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.?

4) Which first lady married her husband during his term of presidential office?

5) Which first lady used a nickname on her marriage license?

6) Which first lady's memoir was published 73 years after her death?

7) Which first lady was dubbed the "second-most powerful person in the United States" by Time magazine during her husband's term in office?

8) Which first lady was the first to appear on a U.S. postage stamp?

9) Which first lady wrote a widely syndicated newspaper column titled "My Day"?

10) Which first lady endowed the first hospital in the United States devoted to children's care?



ANSWERS

1) Martha Jefferson Randolph. The eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson — who had been a widower for nearly two decades at the time of his inauguration — was 29 and married to Thomas Randolph Jr. when she informally assumed the role of first lady. Both Martha's sister, Mary, and Dolley Madison, wife of James Madison (and later first lady in her own right), also assisted Jefferson at times.

2) Michelle Obama. Before meeting Barack Obama, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson thought his name sounded strange and had decided that "any black guy who spent his formative years on an island had to be a little nerdy."

3) Dolley Payne Todd Madison. Famously forced to flee the national capital during the War of 1812, Dolley and her husband, President James Madison, took up residence in the Octagon House on Sept. 8, 1814, and remained there six months.

4) Three women have married a sitting U.S. president: Frances Clara Folsom, age 21, married 49-year-old Grover Cleveland during the first of his two non-consecutive terms in office in a ceremony held at the White House. Julia Gardiner, age 24, married 54-year-old John Tyler in a private ceremony in New York. Edith Bolling Galt had been a widow for seven years when, at age 43, she married 59-year-old widower Woodrow Wilson.

5) Claudia Alta Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson. Nicknamed "Lady Bird" since infancy, she used the nickname Bird, the name most often by her husband, on the couple's marriage license.

6) Julia Dent Grant. Though Julia was the first first lady to write a memoir, she was unable to find a publisher in her lifetime. The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant) was not published until 1975.

7) Rosalynn Smith Carter. President Jimmy Carter described his politically energetic spouse � who traveled alone to 41 states to campaign for her husband prior to his election — as being a "perfect extension of myself."

8) Martha Washington. George Washington's faithful spouse, who followed her husband to each of his winter camps during the American Revolutionary War, was the both the first first lady and first American woman to be commemorated on a postage stamp, issued in 1902. Subsequent stamps featuring Martha Washington were issued in 1923 and 1938.

9) Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor was also the first first lady to hold regular press conferences, the first to host a weekly radio show, the first to write a monthly magazine column, and the first to speak at a national political party convention.

10) Harriet Lane. Harriet was the niece and ward of James Buchanan, the only U.S. president to never marry, and served as first lady during his single term in office (immediately preceding the election of Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the American Civil War). The Harriet Lane Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center is still in operation today, receiving about 18,000 visits per year.