History Trivia Questions and Answers

Free miscellaneous history trivia questions mostly about US presidents

Miscellaneous History Questions and Answers

What war saw James Madison become the first U.S. president to command a military unit during his term in office?
A: The War of 1812.

What document did President Andrew Johnson want a copy of placed under his head upon his burial?
A: The U.S. Constitution.

What inscription on U.S. coins did Theodore Roosevelt try in vain to have removed?
A: In God We Trust.

What former U.S. president showed up on dollar coins in 1971?
A: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

What did Ronald Reagan disclose he was suffering from, in 1994?
A: Alzheimer's disease.

What future U.S. president received the last rites of the Catholic Church after an infection following spinal surgery in 1954.
A: John F. Kennedy.

Who did Abraham Lincoln promote to major general or volunteers after he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson?
A: Ulysses S. Grant.
How many U.S. presidents played a role in Vietnam's civil war?
A: Five.

Who said: "I'm the president of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli"?
A: George Bush.

Who was the first president to appear on a U.S. coin?
A: Abraham Lincoln.

What date saw FDR sign the U.S. declaration of war against Japan?
A: December 8, 1941.

What pooch was the only gift Richard Nixon admitted accepting, in a famous 1952 speech?
A: Checkers.

Who was assassinated the day after Andy Warhol was shot?
A: Robert F. Kennedy.

What Wild West figure is described on his New Mexico tombstone as "The Boy Bandit King"?
A: Billy the Kid.

Who was billed as the "Killer of Custer" in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show?
A: Sitting Bull.

What conspirator in the Lincoln assassination was pardoned for saving the lives of prison guards during a yellow fever epidemic?
A: Dr. Samuel Mudd.

What condition was alleviated by medicine dubbed "liquid cork" by U.S. troops in Vietnam?
A: Diarrhea.

What medical condition kept William Blount from traveling to Philadelphia on horseback for the 1787 Constitutional Convention?
A: Hemorrhoids.

What physicist called nationalism "the measles of mankind"?
A: Albert Einstein.

What was the world's principal Christian city before it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453?
A: Constantinople.

Who is credited with creating the model of European fascism in the 20th century?
A: Benito Mussolini.

What "revolution" saw almost every Chinese citizen to a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book?
A: The Cultural Revolution.

What was closed to traffic after the Six Day War in 1967, and not reopened until 1975?
A: The Suez Canal.

Who convinced Jamaicans he'd made the moon disappear during a lunar eclipse in 1504?
A: Christopher Columbus.

What group meets in a Pentagon room dubbed "The Tank"?
A: The Joint Chiefs of Staff.

What Texan ended up with one delegate after spending $12 million of his own money running for president in 1980?
A: John Connally.

What Caribbean nation sent thousands of troops to Angola and Ethiopia in the 1970s?
A: Cuba.

What military man had a much less famous cousin nicknamed "Mudwall"?
A: "Stonewall" Jackson.

What Israeli is known affectionately as "Bibi"?
A: Benjamin Netanyahu.

What Roman emperor forbade citizens from laughing or bathing after one of his sister-wives died?
A: Caligula.

What weekend retreat saw Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat hammer out an Israeli-Egyptian peace accord in 1978?
A: Camp David.

Who proved his mettle as a pollster in the 1936 presidential elections?
A: George Gallup.