Miscellaneous World History Trivia
What Woodward and Bernstein
book topped the bestseller list five
weeks before Nixon Quit in
1974?
A: All the President's Men.
What dictator is affectionately dubbed El Maximo by fans?
A: Fidel Castro.
What U.S. president installed
solar panels on the White House
roof?
A: Jimmy Carter.
Who pledged in 1964: "We're not going to send
American boys to do
what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves"?
A: Lyndon B. Johnson.
What word has appeared on every coin struck in the U.S. since
1792?
A: Liberty.
What condiment did the
Agriculture Department allow to count as
"one of the two vegetables required" in school
lunch programs in
1981?
A: Ketchup.
Where was JFK when he said the U.S. "never had to put up a wall
to keep our people in"?
A: West Berlin.
What was Titanic survivor Molly Brown nicknamed?
A: Unsinkable.
Who was accused of being drunk when sworn in as
Abraham Lincoln's
vice president?
A: Andrew Johnson.
What two-word phrase to describe an ambitious
social program was
coined by LBJ on April 23, 1964?
A: Great Society.
Who was U.S. president when the first edition of the
Farmer's
Almanac was published?
A: George Washington.
What assassin put his wedding ring in a demitasse cup before
leaving home for the last
time?
A: Lee Harvey Oswald.
Who once agreed to head up
Chrysler for an annual salary of one
dollar?
A: Lee Iacocca.
What city did Napoleon occupy in 1798, sending
Pope Pius VI to
the south of France?
A: Rome.
Who was the longest-serving president in the Americas, through
1995?
A: Fidel Castro.
What R-word described a person refused an exit visa by the Soviet
Union?
A: Refusenik.
What network did U.S. troops in the Gulf
War dub "Scud-a-vision"?
A: CNN.
Who got out of jail in time to become head of Czechoslovakia in
1989?
A: Vaclav Havel.
Who thanked
Henry VIII for allowing her to be decapitated by a
sword instead of an ax?
A: Anne Boleyn.
What European city lost 4,000 people to a "killer fog" of
carbon
dioxide in 1952?
A: London.
What New England state was originally claimed by both
New
Hampshire and New York?
A: Vermont.
Who did Iranian militants want returned in exchange for U.S.
hostages in 1979?
A: The Shah of Iran.
What two World War I enemies suffered one million casualties in
the Battle of Verdun?
A: France and Germany.
What old soldier died in Washington, D.C., on April 5,
1964?
A: Douglas MacArthur.
What Pink Floyd song was banned by the
South African government
after it became an anthem for black schoolchildren?
A: Another Brick in the Wall.
What were Stanley's first words to David Livingstone?
A: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume"
What Wild West legend was fired as sheriff of
Wichita for
pocketing fines he'd collected?
A: Wyatt Earp.
What country enacted the War Powers Act to quell a separatist
rebellion in 1970?
A: Canada.
Who made his first known visit to
Israel in 1995, to visit
Yitzhak Rabin's widow?
A: Yasir Arafat.