Interesting Trivia Questions

Interesting Trivia Questions Part 1

1) In US, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi is Mount Mitchell. What state is it in?

Answer: North Carolina

2) Who founded the Perkins Institute for the blind?

A) Harriet Tubman
B) Lloyd Garrison
C) Samuel G. Lowe
D) James G. Birney

Answer: C

3) What capital’s oldest bridge is Pont Neuf?

Answer: Paris

4) This astronomer made precise measurements of our solar system and hundreds of stars prior to the invention of the telescope in the early 17th century, correcting errors in the standard astronomical tables of the day. Can you name the scientist? (Hint: This person is also known for having a prosthetic nose made of gold and silver)

Answer: Tycho Brahe

5) What group of animals are called a clowder?

Answer: Cats.

Cats can purr at about the same rate as an idling diesel engine- approximately 25 cycles per second.

6) In what year did the Mayflower’s pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock?

Answer: 1620

7) This extinct bird was a close relative of the puffin:

A) Dodo bird
B) Great auk
C) Pterodactyl
D) Passenger pigeon
E) Trumpeter swan

Answer: B

Hunted for its flesh, feathers and oil, it became extinct in 1844.

8) In music, what song did Elton John rerecord with new lyrics in 1997 in honor of the late Princess Diana?

Answer: Candle in the Wind

9) According to its ad slogan, what bath product is “1/4 moisturizing lotion”?

A) Ivory
B) Neutrogena
C) Dove
D) Dial

Answer: C

10) Which mountain peak is not in the Cascades?

A) Mt. St. Helens
B) Lassen Peak
C) Mt. Egmont
D) Mt. Rainier
E) Mt. Shasta

Answer: C

Egmont is a mountain on New Zealand’s North Island.

11) Which literary classic was first published in the 19th century?

A) Tom Jones
B) Gulliver’s Travels
C) Dangerous Liaisons
D) Alice in Wonderland
E) Robinson Crusoe

Answer: D

The other classics date from the 17th and 18th centuries.

12) What is another name for a long bench used for seating members of a church’s congregation?

Answer: Pew

13) Before they became famous singers, James Brown, Dean Martin, and Jackie Wilson all participated in what sport?

Answer: Boxing

In their youth, all three were amateur boxers. Jackie Wilson was even a Golden Gloves Champion of Detroit. Dean Martin boxed under the name of Kid Crochet.

14) In food, the name of which kind of thin pasta shape is derived from the Italian word for “worms”?

Answer: Vermicelli

15) Find the Famous First Words

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

A) The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
B) Hopscotch, Julio Cortázar
C) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
D) The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes

Answer: C

In One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Gabriel García Márquez popularized the genre known as magical realism, a style that blends fantasy with realism. Even the novel’s opening line seems to blend the inescapable realism of a man’s execution with the victim’s whimsical memory of the time he went with his father “to discover ice.”

Interesting Trivia Questions Part 2

16) Which famous literary work is not written in verse?

A) Don Quixote
B) Beowulf
C) The Divine Comedy
D) Oedipus Rex
E) The Odyssey

Answer: A

The Cervantes work is one of the earliest examples of a novel.

17) Which composer did Sir John Russell call ‘a wizard, overpowered by the demons he has called up’?

A) Beethoven
B) Mozart
C) Tchaikovsky

Answer: A

18) In business, which Minneapolis company owns the brands Betty Crocker and Cheerios?

Answer: General Mills

19) In 1952, Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of which country?

Answer: Israel

20) What prominent feature do the group of mammals known as proboscideans have in common?

Answer: A proboscidean is a mammal with a long trunk-like snout. There are only two extant Proboscideans the African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximus) elephants. Elephants are also called pachyderms, a term that refers to their thick skin.

21) Who invented the electric light bulb?

Answer: Thomas Edison

22) The word “lucid” means:

A) Erotic
B) Clear
C) Heavy
D) Difficult
E) Wicked

Answer: B

The term derives from the Latin word for shining.

23) What city is home to New Zealand’s House of Representatives?

Answer: Wellington

24) This scientist was the first person to identify nuclear fission, in 1939. Can you name the scientist?

A) Alfred Russel Wallace
B) Lise Meitner
C) Robert Oppenheimer

Answer: B

25) What is a vmi-vmi?

Answer: It’s a very small pig! A pig’s skin is so thick that fleas have no interest in biting them.

26) In 1912, who became editor of the socialist newspaper Avanti?

Answer: Benito Mussolini

27) Who was the author of the book The Magic Mountain?

Answer: Thomas Mann

28) This film opens with “On Broadway,” and closes with “Bye Bye Love”:

A) Bye Bye Birdie
B) All That Jazz
C) Grease
D) White Knights
E) A Chorus Line

Answer: B

Directed by Bob Fosse, it is said to be autobiographical.

29) The Great Australian Bight is off which coast?

A) North
B) South
C) East
D) West

Answer: B

30) In automobiles, which Japanese company manufactures the model known as the “Outback”?

Answer: Subaru

Interesting Trivia Questions Part 3

31) Who wrote the 1995 book The Road Ahead about the history and future of technology?

A) Steve Jobs
B) Steve Case
C) Bill Gates
D) Michael Dell

Answer: C

32) Which scientist won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Linus Pauling

33) Which explorer took possession of the Mississippi Valley and named it Louisiana?

A) Robert LaSalle
B) Ponce de Leon
C) Walter Raleigh
D) John Cabot
E) Francis Drake

Answer: A

LaSalle was killed by his men after failing to find the mouth of the Mississippi.

34) If a sinker made of lead and another identical sinker made of aluminum were dropped into saltwater, why would the lead sinker reach the bottom first?

A) The aluminum sinker has a greater surface area
B) The density of lead exceeds that of aluminum
C) The lead sinker is more aerodynamic

Answer: B

35) All of these are kinds of boats or ships except:

A) Brigantine
B) Ketch
C) Funicular
D) Trimaran
E) Skipjack

Answer: C

A funicular is a mountain railway often suspended from cables.

36) A solution where so much solute has been added to the solvent so that no more can dissolve is:

A) concentrated
B) saturated
D) Dilute

Answer: B

37) Stones weighing up to four tons were moved 240 miles from south-west Wales to create which ancient monument?

Answer: Stonehenge

38) The place where two bones meet and pivot is called a:

A) Joint
B) Ligament
C) Synovium

Answer: A

39) What is the longest river in the world?

Answer: Nile River

The longest is the Nile in Africa, which flows 4,160 miles to the Mediterranean Sea. The next two rivers in length are the Amazon and the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) Rivers.

40) Which instrument has 47 strings and seven pedals, and was introduced into the orchestra in the 19th century?

Answer: Concert harp

41) In geography, the Turkish seaport formerly called Constantinople is known by what name today?

Answer: Istanbul

42) In ice hockey, how many players from each side are allowed on the ice at any one time?

Answer: 6

43) Find the Famous First Words

“The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.”

A) Dune, Frank Herbert
B) 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
C) The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

Answer: B

Although it sounds like the science-fiction world of a different planet, the “drought (that) had lasted ten million years” and “the reign of terrible lizards” take place on Earth, at least on the Earth as imagined in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Clarke wrote the story of 2001 while motion-picture director Stanley Kubrick directed the celebrated film of the same name, but the two collaborated on both projects.

44) What U.S. state’s hero is Nathan Hale?

A) Connecticut
B) New York
C) Rhode Island
D) Massachusetts

Answer: A

45) What arduous water sport was first played in Australia in 1888?

Answer: Water Polo

46) Which Latin legal term means being caught red-handed?

A) In curia
B) Habeas corpus
C) In flagrante delicto
D) Quid pro quo
E) In camera

Answer: C

“In curia” means “in court,” “habeas corpus” means “court order,” a “quid pro quo” is a fair exchange, and “in camera” means “in chambers.”

47) In which African country is the town of Timbuktu?

Answer: Mali

48) What did English painter Richard Dadd do that led to a life in asylums?