History Trivia Quiz Questions
What tree was named for the Native
American scholar who created
the 85-sylable Cherokee alphabet?
A: The sequoia.
What country saw Ion Iliescu take over in
1989, after its
previous president was arrested, tried and shot?
A: Romania.
What single name is more commonly applied to Holy Roman Emperor
Charles the Great?
A: Charlemagne.
What anchorman admitted he was wrong to announce Russian
capitalists were auctioning off Lenin's preserved corpse?
A: Peter Jennings.
What's explorer Fernao de Magelhaes better known as in English?
A: Ferdinand Magellan.
What got a new balcony, front portico and two extra chimneys on
the back of $20 bills, in 1948?
A: The White House.
What city's worker-student protests of
1968 resulted in a 33
percent rise in the national minimum wage?
A: Paris.
What's the top-grossing U.S. retail chain owned by one family?
A: Wal-Mart.
What nation bartered 30 million barrels of oil for ten Boeing
747s in 1984?
A: Saudi Arabia.
What country's
civil war was described as a "rehearsal for World
War II"?
A: Spain's.
Who was turned down by seven people he asked to be his running
mate in 1972?
A: George McGovern.
What politician agreed to cough up $432,000 in back taxes in
April of 1974?
A: Richard Nixon.
Who was on the cover of
Time most often-Winston Churchill, FDR,
or Joseph Stalin?
A: Joseph Stalin.
What British leader was once dubbed "Attila the Hen"?
A: Margaret Thatcher.
What siblings did the Ontario government build a nursery called
Quintland for?
A: The Dionne quintuplets.
What chemical's maker coughed up $180 million to pay medical
costs for Vietnam vets in 1984?
A: Agent Orange's.
What 1962 crisis prevented the Kennedy brothers from negotiating
to buy the Philadelphia Eagles?
A: The Cuban Missile Crisis.
What assassin's diary reveals that he changed his plans from
kidnapping to murder the day before he did the deed?
A: John Wilkes Booth's.
What war saw GI's being told over the radio: "Bart Simpson is
making love to your wife"?
A: The Persian Gulf War.
What nation's flag was referred to in World War II as a
"meatball"?
A: Japan's.
Who was accused of
dancing "with devils" after he announced plans
to build a South Dakota casino near sacred Sioux lands?
A: Kevin Costner.
Who's been called "the French Stalin" for executing 20,000 during
the Reign of Terror?
A: Maximilien Robespierre.
Who became Britain's longest continuously serving prime minister
of the 20th century?
A: Margaret Thatcher.
What Soviet republic's 1988
earthquake marked the first time the
USSR embraced international relief after a disaster?
A: Armenia's.
What French Louis reigned a record 72 years?
A: Louis XIV.
What twin cities in Japan were largely leveled by a
1923
earthquake?
A: Tokyo and Yokohama.
What socialist writer's last words were: "Last words are for
fools who haven't said enough"?
A: Karl Marx's.
What country used weather-borne balloons to drop more than a
hundred bombs on North America during World War II?
A: Japan.
What 10-year-old began earning his bad reputation by throwing
puppies off the Kremlin walls in 1540?
A: Ivan the Terrible.