History Trivia Quiz Questions
What amendment in the U.S.
Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of
religion, speech and the press?
A: The First Amendment.
Who was dubbed "Lenin's left leg" during the early stages of
Russia's Marxist movement?
A: Joseph Stalin.
What doctor came to court dressed as
Thomas Jefferson, who was
also thought to favor helping the terminally ill commit suicide?
A: Jack Kevorkian.
What country was ruled from 827 until 860 by Egbert, Ethelwulf
and Ethelbald?
A: England.
What did Elizabeth I have removed from her palaces when her hair
thinned and her cheeks hollowed?
A: Mirrors.
What historic structure was saved from a real estate syndicate by
a donation from a Texas
cattle heiress?
A: The Alamo.
Who's letter to Ronald Reagan read: "I'm very sorry...I thank God
no one died"?
A: John Hinckley Jr.
How many people were killed in
1979 at the Three Mile Island
nuclear disaster?
A: Zero.
What British prime minister defined a fanatic as "one who can't
change his mind and won't change the subject"?
A: Winston Churchill.
What Japanese war cry meant "May you live forever"?
A: Banzai.
Who distanced herself from politics by changing her last name to
Davis at 22?
A: Patti Reagan.
Who piloted the first airplane to suffer a passenger fatality, in
1908?
A: Orville Wright.
What river was Hernando De Soto the first white man to see and be
buried in?
A: The Mississippi River.
Who was known as "Tanya" after a
1974 San Francisco
bank robbery?
A: Patti Hearst.
What seventh
king of
Israel shares his name with a Herman
Melville literary character?
A: Ahab.
What U.S. president died 79 days after being shot?
A: James Garfield.
What outfit's National
Intelligence Daily has a circulation of
about 200?
A: The Central Intelligence Agency's.
What leader said in 1942: "Never before have we had so little
time in which to do so much"?
A: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
What child name's plunge in U.S. popularity was attributed to a
famous 1974 scandal?
A: Richard's.
What 1970 hit movie was banned on
military bases for "reducing
the conventions and paraphernalia of war to total idiocy?
A: M*A*S*H
What awards, founded in 1901, are funded with the help of the
Bank of Sweden?
A: The Nobel Prizes.
What country did 300,000
Chinese troops invade in February of
1979?
A: Vietnam.
What seductive World War I spy had a daughter named Banda who was
also a spy?
A: Mata Hari.
What color were the "black boxes" on TWA Flight 800?
A: Orange.
Where in Beijing did Chinese students build a Goddess of
Democracy in May, 1989?
A: Tiananmen Square.
What author moved some 56 times in the six months after he was
issued a death threat?
A: Salman Rushdie.
What Connecticut resident was the first
woman in U.S.
history to
be elected a U.S. governor without inheriting the office from a hubbie?
A: Ella Grasso.
What secretary of defense admitted the Vietnam War was a
"mistake" in 1995?
A: Robert McNamara.
What nation's 90-man army is the world's oldest, dating back to
1506?
A: Vatican City's.
