Danielle Scott, age 15, of Lyconia, N.H., for her question:

WHAT WAS TEAPOT DOME?

Teapot Dome is the name given to one of the most notorious scandals in the administration of President Warren Harding.

In 1923, a Senate investigation and subsequent testimony in court trials revealed that Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall had persuaded Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby to transfer government oil reserves at Elk Hills, Calif., and Teapot Dome, Wyo., to the Department of the Interior.

Fall then leased the reserves to private oil producers E.I. Doheny and Harry Sinclair. These leases were made without competitive bidding. In both cases, Fall received large sums of money for helping to arrange the transfers: $100,000 from Doheny for Elk Hills and $300,000 from Sinclair for teapot Dome.

The scandal forced Fall to resign in 1923. Denby resigned in 1924 after President Harding had died and Calvin Coolidge had become president.

Fall was later convicted of accepting a bribe and sentenced to prison.