Do you know US History? Test your knowledge with these 200+ US trivia questions about American history.
US History is filled with important facts, both big and small. From presidents to wars, learn more about this country’s past with these challenging trivia questions.
With topics ranging from early settlers to civil rights movements, there’s something for everyone in this comprehensive list of US history trivia questions (answers included).
Get the family together for a fun quiz night to see who can Answer: the most questions correctly. Who will prove their mastery of American history?
Find out by playing an exciting game of US history trivia!
Table of Contents
What Makes US History Trivia Questions So Engaging?
US History trivia questions can be both educational and entertaining.
From the colonial era to the present day, US history is full of interesting stories that are sure to capture anyone’s attention.
Trivia questions offer a fun way for students, teachers, and history buffs alike to test their knowledge of this fascinating subject.
From topics such as American presidents and famous landmarks to significant events in the nation’s past or important court cases, US History trivia questions provide an engaging way for people to connect with the past.
Best US History Trivia Questions
Whether holding a game night with friends or looking for an educational activity for the family, American history trivia questions can be an entertaining way to learn about our nation.
1. What was the first woman to hold federal executive office in the United States?
Answer: Kamala Harris.
2. Who did Pocahontas marry?
Answer: John Rolfe, a tobacco planter.
3. What was the name of the first (permanent English) American colony?
Answer: Jamestown, after King James I.
4. What year was the Jamestown settlement established?
Answer: In 1607.
5. When was the last time the Liberty Bell rang?
Answer: In 1846 it rang for George.
6. How do historians refer to the time period in the 1730s and 1740s when colonists began a protest Christian revival over secularism?
Answer: The Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s was a massive Christian revival.
7. What five countries formed colonies that would later become part of the United States territory?
Answer: England, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain.
8. What tribe was Pocahontas from?
Answer: The Powhatan tribal nation.
9. What year began the worst economic recession since the Great Depression?
Answer: 2008.
10. What year did the U.S. Supreme Court allow same-sex marriage?
Answer: 2015.
11. How long ago do historians estimate the first settlers arrived on what is now American soil?
Answer: More than 12,000 years ago.
12. How did Indigenous tribes get here?
Answer: Scholars believe they walked over a land bridge between Asia and Alaska.
13. How many people were killed in the Salem Witch Trials?
Answer: Twenty people were executed for suspicion of witchcraft (usually by hanging, not burning at the stake), and five more died in jail.
14. What was the bloodiest single-day battle of American history?
Answer: The Battle of Antietam, during the Civil War.
15. Why did the Pilgrims come to America?
Answer: To start their own religious community after becoming dissatisfied with the Protestant Church in England.
16. What was the name of the Pilgrims’ ship?
Answer: The Mayflower.
17. What year were the first enslaved Africans brought to American colonies?
Answer: 1619.
18. Which oil company’s rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and countless species of wildlife?
Answer: British Petroleum (BP).
19. When did Christopher Columbus land in what would later become the United States?
Answer: He didn’t. Most historians agree he landed in parts of Central and South America, as well as some Caribbean islands.
20. Who led the first land expedition to the Pacific Coast?
Answer: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
21. When was the first American currency created?
Answer: The Continental Congress began issuing paper money called Continentals after the Revolutionary War began in 1775.
22. When was the Declaration of Independence signed?
Answer: August 2, 1776 (The final draft was completed July 4, but it wasn’t actually signed until nearly a month later).
23. Who do historians believe created the first American flag?
Answer: Francis Hopkinson.
24. What was Hopkinson’s fee for creating the flag?
Answer: A quarter-cask of wine.
25. When did the Revolutionary War end?
Answer: Sept. 3, 1783.
26. What was the name of the treaty that ended the war?
Answer: The Treaty of Paris.
27. How many battles were fought during the American Revolution?
Answer: More than 230.
28. What was the first American state?
Answer: Delaware.
29. Who was the first president to live in the White House?
Answer: John Adams.
30. Which president signed the Indian Removal Act, which moved Native Americans into unsettled land in the West in exchange for their land within state borders?
Answer: President Andrew Jackson.
31. Who was the first president to receive a Secret Service code name?
Answer: President Harry Truman, who was called “General.”
32. Which branch of the military did President John F. Kennedy serve in?
Answer: The United States Navy.
33. Which four presidents have been assassinated while in office?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy.
34. When was the first year Veteran’s Day was celebrated?
Answer: Nov. 11, 1954.
35. Who was the first president to declare war?
Answer: James Madison.
36. What war did this declaration begin?
Answer: The War of 1812 against Great Britain.
37. Who was the shortest-serving United States president?
Answer: William Henry Harrison.
38. Who refused to give up her bus seat, sparking national civil rights protests?
Answer: Rosa Parks.
39. How many Native Americans were forcibly relocated by the government under the Indian Removal Act?
Answer: About 100,000.
40. About 4,000 members of which Native American tribe died of cold, hunger or disease on the Trail of Tears?
Answer: Cherokee.
Easy US History Trivia Questions
From the Revolutionary War to the election of Joe Biden, there are plenty of interesting topics to explore. Here are some common trivia questions about American history that will test your knowledge:
1. What sport’s hall of fame enshrined Abraham Lincoln for having a stellar record of just one loss?
Answer: Wrestling.
2. How many stars does the American Flag have?
Answer: fifty.
3. How many Stripes does the United States of America’ flag have?
Answer: thirteen stripes.
4. What state was the last state to overturn laws against interracial marriage in the year 2000?
Answer: Alabama.
5. Which Founding Father had a house which was discovered to have had about one thousand two hundred bone pieces from about ten human skeletons?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin.
6. Which US president served the shortest term of about two months because of dying from a cold?
Answer: William Henry Harrison.
7. Who preceded Ronald Raegan’s presidency in the United States of America?
Answer: Jimmy Carter.
8. Which United States of America Armed Force did John Fitzgerald Kennedy serve in?
Answer: Navy.
9. What play was President Abraham Lincoln attending at Ford’s Theatre on the night John Wilkes Booth assassinated him?
Answer: Our American Cousin.
10. “The shot heard around the world” refers to the first shot fired in which American war?
Answer: The Revolutionary War.
11. Where was the Anasazi tribe located in North America?
Answer: Southwest United States.
12. In what year did the Wounded Knee Massacre occur?
Answer: 1890.
13. In what year was the fifteenth amendment ratified?
Answer: 1870.
14. Women gained the right to open a credit card in their own name in 1974 with which Act?
Answer: Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.
15. What is the name of the plantation on which George Washington lived?
Answer: Mount Vernon.
16. What were the participants in the Boston Tea Party protesting?
Answer:: Taxation without representation.
17. In what year was Jamestown, Virginia settled by Europeans?
Answer: 1607.
18. Which first lady was the first to outlive her husband?
Answer: Martha Washington.
19. Who was the first US president to be term limited by the 22nd Amendment?
Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower.
20. What was the first nation to officially recognize the independence of the United States?
Answer: Morocco – 1777.
21. Who personally saved the U.S. from financial collapse during the War of 1812 by placing most of his personal assets at the disposal of the government and underwriting about 95% of the war loans?
Answer: Stephen Girard.
22. Which president was once a tailor, and even as president only wore suits he had made himself?
Answer: Andrew Johnson.
23. What was the first governing document of the newly created United States, later replaced by the U.S. Constitution?
Answer: The Articles of Confederation.
24. How many colonies were there originally before the republic?
Answer: 13.
25. What were colonists protesting with the Boston Tea Party?
Answer: The Stamp Act by the British Govt.
26. Who was the first US president under the age of 50?
Answer: James K. Polk.
27. Who was the first US president to have served as director of Central Intelligence?
Answer: George H.W. Bush.
28. What president lost the nuclear launch codes for months and nobody found out?
Answer: Bill Clinton.
29. What year did “In God We Trust” become the official U.S. national motto?
Answer: 1956.
30. Which first lady was the first to earn a postgraduate degree?
Answer: Hillary Clinton.
31. What president gave the White House its name?
Answer: Theodore Roosevelt – 1901.
32. How many Civil War generals became president?
Answer: Six – Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison.
33. Who was the first president to be defeated for a second term in office?
Answer: John Adams.
34. Who was the first president to visit the Soviet Union?
Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
35. What state’s name is derived from the Ojibwe word for “great or large lake”?
Answer: Michigan.
Hard US History Trivia Questions
Do you think you know American history very well? Prove it with Answer:ing these hard American history trivia quiz!
1. What was the name of the battle after which General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant?
Answer: The Battle of Appomattox Court House.
2. What is the name of the theater where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth?
Answer: Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
3. When did the Civil War end?
Answer: May 9, 1865.
4. How many Africans were captured and forcibly transported during the entirety of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
Answer: Between 10 and 15 million.
5. What state seceded from Virginia in 1863?
Answer: West Virginia.
6. About how many slaves were freed at the conclusion of the Civil War?
Answer: 3.9 million.
7. Who was the first president to be impeached?
Answer: President Andrew Johnson in 1868.
8. What country gifted the United States with the Statue of Liberty?
Answer: France.
9. Who was the first African American senator?
Answer: Hiram Rhodes Revels took his oath of office in 1870.
10. About how many Europeans immigrated to America from 1865 to 1918?
Answer: About 27.5 million.
11. What was the first United States national monument?
Answer: Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
12. What city was the first capital of the United States?
Answer: New York City.
13. What was the last state to be admitted into the union?
Answer: Hawaii.
14. Who was the first man on the moon?
Answer: Neil Armstrong.
15. How many people were killed at that battle?
Answer: A total of 22,654 Union and Confederate soldiers were wounded or killed.
16. When was the first U.S. dollar printed?
Answer: 1862.
17. Whose portrait was on it?
Answer: Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War.
18. Who was the Confederate president during the Civil War?
Answer: Jefferson Davis.
19. When was the Emancipation Proclamation issued?
Answer: Jan. 1, 1863.
20. Who was captain of the Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912?
Answer: Edward Smith.
21. What young women’s organization did Juliette Gordon Low establish in 1912?
Answer: Girl Scouts of the USA.
22. What was the date of the Black Tuesday stock market crash?
Answer: October 24, 1929.
23. When did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?
Answer: Dec. 7, 1941.
24. Who was the first United States president to appear on television?
Answer: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
25. How many Americans were killed in World War II?
Answer: The United States lost 1.3 million lives.
26. What is the oldest European-founded city in the United States?
Answer: St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565 by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles of Spain.
27. Who was the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress in 1916?
Answer: Jeanette Rankin.
28. What year did the United States enter World War I?
Answer: 1917.
29. Passed in 1919, which amendment prevented the sale of alcoholic beverages?
Answer: The 18th Amendment.
30. What was the United States’ first commercial radio station?
Answer: KDKA in Pittsburgh.
31. Who was the first European to land in North America?
Answer: Leif Erikson arrived from Norway in the 10th century.
32. What founding father was credited with inventing bifocals?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin.
33. How many original British colonies existed in America?
Answer: 13.
34. What was the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use?
Answer: California, in 1996.
35. When did the U.S. government issue a formal apology to the surviving members of the Tuskegee Experiments (conducted from 1932-72)?
Answer: 1997.
US History Trivia Questions for Kids
Are your kids fascinated by American history? Do they love quizzes? This American history quiz for kids covers a wide range of topics including famous battles, founding fathers, and famous landmarks.
1. Who was the first Black president?
Answer: Barack Obama.
2. What animal is considered to be the American symbol?
Answer: The bald eagle.
3. What date do we celebrate independence day?
Answer: 4th July.
4. Who was the first US president?
Answer: George Washington.
5. What is the name of the building where the president lives?
Answer: The White House.
6. What mountain has the faces of 4 US presidents carved into it?
Answer: Mount Rushmore.
7. Which explorer discovered North America in 1492?
Answer: Christopher Columbus.
8. In which city can you find the Empire State Building?
Answer: New York.
9. What do the stars on the US flag represent?
Answer: The states.
10. How many colonies were there originally?
Answer: 13.
11. What is the capital city of the USA?
Answer: Washington DC.
12. The first president of the United States of America is?
Answer: George Washington.
13. On what date was the Declaration of Independence signed?
Answer: July fourth seventeen seventy six.
14. Who was the first US president to have his voice recorded?
Answer: Benjamin Harrison.
15. Who is the only president buried in Washington, D.C.?
Answer: Woodrow Wilson.
16. Which US state is named after a French king?
Answer: Louisiana.
17. What president survived four plane crashes during WWII?
Answer: George H.W. Bush.
18. Which president established the Secret Service?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln.
19. On a clear day, how many states can you see from the top of the Empire State Building?
Answer: Five – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania.
20. What NASA space flight was the last manned mission to the Moon?
Answer: Apollo 17.
21. What person and organization are widely believed to be behind the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001?
Answer: Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda.
22. What year did Apple Computer introduce the first iPod?
Answer: 2001.
23. What was the name of the space shuttle that exploded on re-entry over Texas, killing all seven astronauts aboard?
Answer: Columbia.
24. What was the name of the hurricane that devastated New Orleans in 2005?
Answer: Hurricane Katrina.
25. What was the date of the Boston Tea Party?
Answer: On Dec. 16, 1773,
26. What type of exercise area did President Barack Obama have installed in the White House?
Answer: A basketball court.
27. What’s the call sign of the president’s helicopter?
Answer: Marine One.
28. What state’s electoral votes ultimately decided the 2000 presidential election?
Answer: Florida.
US History Trivia Questions for Middle School
Test your knowledge by engaging trivia United States history quiz! This set of questions is perfect for middle school students who are studying American history in the classroom.
1. According to historians, when did the first settlers arrive on what is now known as American soil?
Answer: It was over 12,000 years ago.
2. How did indigenous people end up in this place?
Answer: Experts say they crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and Alaska.
3. When did Christopher Columbus first set foot in what is now the United States?
Answer: He didn’t do it. He landed in areas of Central and South America, as well as several Caribbean islands, according to most historians.
4. What is the name of the United States’ oldest European-founded city?
Answer: St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. It was founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles of Spain.
5. Who was the first European to set foot on the continent of North America?
Answer: In the 10th century, Leif Erikson arrived from Norway.
6. When did the Declaration of Independence go into effect?
Answer: August 2, 1776 (The final draft was finished on July 4, but it wasn’t signed until nearly a month later.)
8. How much did Hopkinson charge for designing the flag?
Answer: Wine from a quarter-cask.
9. When did the American Revolutionary War come to an end?
Answer: 3rd of September, 1783.
10. What was the name of the peace settlement that brought the war to an end?
Answer: The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1815.
11. Who was the first president of the United States to appear on television?
Answer: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
12. In World War II, how many Americans died?
Answer: A total of 1.3 million people died in the United States.
13. Who was the first president to be given a code name by the Secret Service?
Answer: President Harry S. Truman, dubbed “General.”
14. President John F. Kennedy served in which branch of the military?
Answer: The Navy of the United States of America.
15. Which American presidents were assassinated while in office?
Answer: John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and James Garfield
16. What state produces about 95% of the bourbon in the world?
Answer: Kentucky.
17. Where is the population center of the United States (as estimated by the 2020 census)?
Answer: About 9 miles outside of Hartville, Missouri.
18. Which oil company’s rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and destroying countless wildlife species?
Answer: British Petroleum. It is a company based in the United States.
19. In what year did the United States Supreme Court legalize same-gender marriage?
Answer: It was legalized in 2015.
20. Who was the first woman in the US to hold a federal executive position?
Answer: Kamala Harris
21. Who led a band of abolitionists that seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in October 1859?
Answer: John Brown.
22. Who was vice president when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
Answer: No one – Harry S. Truman did not have a vice president for the remainder of his first term.
23. What future president delivered an 84-minute campaign speech after being shot just before the event?
Answer: Theodore Roosevelt.
24. Who was the first president born in the 19th century?
Answer: Franklin Pierce.
US History Trivia Questions for High School
Are you looking for an engaging way to inform the high school students about the US history? Then look no further than this collection of trivia questions about important figures and events in American history.
1. What historical event do Americans celebrate on the 4th of July?
Answer: Formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
2. Which country did the United States gain independence from?
Answer: Great Britain.
3. How many people are considered by many the Founding Fathers?
Answer: 7.
4. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 in Independence Hall in which United States City?
Answer: Philadelphia.
5. Which United States president cannot be found on Mt. Rushmore, the famous United States landmark in South Dakota?
Answer: John Quincy Adams.
6. Which multi-storied, adobe, Native American community—considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the U.S.—has been inhabited for over 1,000 years?
Answer: B- Taos Pueblo.
7. What was the first university in the United States?
Answer: Harvard.
8. What is the name of the oldest national park, which was founded in 1872?
Answer: Yellowstone.
9. There are over 2,500 National Historic Landmarks in the United States and two of them can move. What are these two monuments?
Answer: Charles streetcar.
10. This holiday is celebrated every year in the United States on the 4th of July.
Answer: Independence Day.
11. Where is the annual Kentucky Derby horse race held every first Saturday in May?
Answer: Louisville, Kentucky.
12. On March 17 th every year, the United States observes St. Patrick’s Day. Which United States city dyes its river green to celebrate?
Answer: Chicago.
13. Indigenous people in northeastern North America were the first groups to produce this sweet treat that is extracted from trees.
Answer: Maple syrup.
14. Po’ Boys, a popular sandwich served on French bread with fillings like fried seafood (usually shrimp), were provided free of charge to feed which group of people in 1929?
Answer: Striking streetcar workers.
15. Few Americans can fathom life without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Who patented the process of making peanut butter from raw peanuts in 1895?
Answer: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.
16. The first McDonald’s was opened in which city in 1937?
Answer: San Bernardino, California.
17. What is the delectable state pie of Florida that was first made in the 1800s in the Florida Keys?
Answer: Key lime pie.
18. US President Monroe was so dedicated to persuading the Spanish to cede what is now Florida to the United States that he traveled to Spain in 1805, and used what form of transportation to get from Paris to Madrid?
Answer: Mule.
19. Which US president regularly got into fights and actually killed a man in a duel for accusing him of cheating on a bet and then insulting his wife?
Answer: Andrew Jackson.
20. Which president worked as the sheriff of Erie County, NY and served as an executioner, hanging multiple men?
Answer: Grover Cleveland.
21. Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member, served as the Secretary of Labor and played a key role in drafting what important piece of legislation?
Answer: The New Deal.
22. Who became the first woman in the history of the United States to become the Speaker of the House?
Answer: Nancy Pelosi.
23. In 1920, which woman became the first African American singer to record a blues song that went on to sell one million copies in a year?
Answer: Mamie Smith.
24. What is the national symbol of freedom of the United States?
Answer: The Statue of Liberty.
25. On what day did the American Revolution begin?
Answer: -45545.
26. Who declared that the 13 colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire?
Answer: The Continental Congress.
27. Which of the following was not one of the original 13 American Colonies?
Answer: Vermont.
28. When did the Fourth of July become a federal holiday?
Answer: 1870.
29. In which year was Independence Day declared a paid holiday for federal employees?
Answer: 1938.
US History Trivia Questions Multiple Choice
Test your knowledge with these multiple choice American history quiz questions. Challenge your friends and family to see who can Answer: the most trivia questions correctly!
1. Who served as the President of the Confederate States of America throughout the Civil War?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. Jefferson Davis
C. Robert E. Lee
Answer: B.
2. Who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, in Washington, D.C.?
A. Robert E. Lee
B. John Jones
C. John Wilkes Booth
Answer: C.
3. Who founded the city of Philadelphia, also known as the “city of brotherly love”?
A. William Philadelphia
B. James I
C. William Penn
Answer: C.
4. Which famous explorer landed near the present-day city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1513?
A. Juan Ponce de León
B. John Cabot
C. John Smith
Answer: A.
5. In December 1773, the Sons of Liberty dressed up as Indians and threw 342 chests of what into the Boston Harbor to protest taxes?
A. Tobacco
B. Gin
C. Tea
Answer: C.
6. On what holiday did George Washington famously cross the icy Delaware River to New Jersey to surprise the enemy forces?
A. Christmas
B. Halloween
C. Thanksgiving
Answer: A.
7. Which side was referred to as the Redcoats during the American Revolutionary War?
A. The British
B. The Colonists
C. The Spanish
Answer: A.
8. What was the name of the Native American woman who met the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and became the translator for their famous voyage across the United States?
A. Pocahontas
B. Little Feather
C. Sacagawea
Answer: C.
9. Which famous document, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declared that “All persons held as slaves within any State…in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”?
A. The Declaration of Independence
B. The Constitution
C. The Emancipation Proclamation
Answer: C.
10. Who was the famous nurse during the Civil War, nicknamed the “Angel of the Battlefields.” After the Civil War, she founded the Red Cross.
A. Virginia Lee
B. Clara Barton
C. Harriet Beecher Stowe
Answer: C.
11. What colony was founded by James Oglethorpe as a place for British citizens who were in debtors’ prisons?
A. Georgia
B. Pennsylvania
C. Virginia
Answer: A.
12. Which famous play depicts the Salem Witch Trials?
A. Trouble in Salem
B. The Crucible
C. Witches on Trial
Answer: B.
Final Thoughts
If you’re a history buff, then this is the perfect article for you!
Our listed 200+ US history trivia questions and answers can give an insight into the past and how it has impacted our present-day lives. It is important to understand the past in order to plan for the future.
With practice, anyone can become an expert in US history with these helpful trivia questions and answers.
We are sure you have already loved the article and learned so many unknown questions and answers from our list.
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