Historical Figures Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 1307
In December 1964, with whom did Martin Luther King confer, who was also spying on him, about the FBI's role in civil rights?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
j. edgar hoover
Who served as professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton from 1890 to 1902 before becoming a U.S. President?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
woodrow wilson
Which 19th-century bird artist is honored by a 45-ton statue of a bull named Albert in an Iowa town?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
john james audubon
Which emperor divorced his first wife in December 1809 and married Archduchess Marie-Louise four months later?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
napoleon
Who was jailed in Paris for debt in December 1855, known for inventing vulcanized rubber?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
charles goodyear
In 1791, who published the first part of 'The Rights of Man' in England and was later charged with treason?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
thomas paine
Who was born Elijah Poole in 1897 and later became the leader of the Nation of Islam, also known as Black Muslims?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
elijah muhammad
Who gave Ethiopia its first written constitution after becoming emperor in 1930?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
haile selassie
Which historically known king of the Huns is described as a small man with a big head and a flat nose, and is considered to be unattractive?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
attila
Which Austrian president was barred from entering the U.S. in 1987 due to possible involvement in Nazi war crimes?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
kurt waldheim
Which battlefield nurse did Lincoln assign the task of identifying missing soldiers at the end of the Civil War?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
clara barton
Which ancient empire did Vitellius, known for indulging in flamingo tongues and peacock brains, serve as emperor?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
rome
Who returned to the Philippines in November 1991 after almost six years in exile?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
imelda marcos
Who was commemorated on a U.S. coin in 1909 on the centennial of his birth?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
abraham lincoln
Whose London tombstone features a giant bust of his head and the epitaph 'Workers of All Lands Unite'?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
karl marx
At the age of 16 in 1837, which British nurse heard a divine message about her life's mission?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
florence nightingale
Which French queen was blamed for the country's bankruptcy and nicknamed 'Madame Deficit'?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
marie antoinette
Which historical figure lost her vision and hearing before the age of 2 and was later helped by Anne Sullivan, starting 5 years afterward?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
helen keller
Which country's King Leopold II established the Congo Free State in 1885?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
belgium
Which Attorney General, buried near his brother in 1968, has a simple white cross marking his grave at Arlington National Cemetery?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
robert f. kennedy
Who was wounded at night by fellow Confederates at Chancellorsville and died 8 days later?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
stonewall jackson
Who was the famous Kentucky frontiersman captured by the Shawnee in 1778, but managed to escape?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
daniel boone
Which famous outlaw joined his older brother Frank in Quantrill's Raiders when he was about 15 years old?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
jesse james
Who was the inspirational revolutionary-general that was an uneducated Mexican peasant of Indian descent?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
emiliano zapata
Which historical figure's landing site on St. Croix was designated as a national landmark over 450 years later?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
christopher columbus
Who was born in 1557 in Temple Grafton, England, married a Stratford boy in 1582, and died in 1623?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
anne hathaway
Which famous First Lady was the half-sister of the widow of Confederate General D.H. Helm, who was offered amnesty?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
mary todd lincoln
Who is the legendary figure said to have been commissioned by King Olav I to bring Christianity to Norse colonists around the year 1000?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
leif erikson
Who was confirmed by the Senate in 1993 as the first black Secretary of Agriculture?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
mike espy
Who is the only American woman whose husband and son were both elected President?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
abigail adams
Who assisted Hitler in writing 'Mein Kampf' and later became a member of his cabinet?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
rudolf hess
Who was expelled from Harvard in 1885 for insulting his professors and later became the publisher of the USA's largest newspaper chain?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
william randolph hearst
Who was the Venetian that arrived at the Chinese court in 1275 with his father and uncle?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
marco polo
Which Mongol ruler of China did Marco Polo serve as an aide?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
kublai khan
Which wrestler married Babe Didrikson in 1938?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
george zaharias
In which country was Winston Churchill's mother Jennie Jerome born?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
united states
Which famous individual started his career doing sports on radio station WHO Des Moines, then became an actor, and later pursued a career in politics?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
ronald reagan
Which botanist turned down an offer in 1931 from the Soviet Union to manage its cotton plantations?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
george washington carver
Which country had King Gustav VI, known for his expertise in archaeology and Chinese ceramics?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
sweden
In which present-day country did Vlad the Impaler, considered the original Dracula, serve as a prince in the 15th century?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
romania
Which clarinetist and big band leader married A.H. Duckworth, a great-great-granddaughter of C. Vanderbilt?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
benny goodman
Who purchased the McDonald brothers' burger business in 1961 for $2.7 million?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
ray kroc
Which close associate and collaborator of Karl Marx remained friends with Eduard Bernstein despite Bernstein's revisions of Marx's ideas?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
friedrich engels
Which Supreme Court justice and author of 'Other People's Money' had a university in Waltham, Mass. named after him?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
louis brandeis
In 1990, who was the Labor Secretary that received a Frontrunner Award from the Sara Lee Corporation?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
elizabeth dole
Which infamous frontier dentist, who later gained notoriety in the Old West, was originally from Georgia and first practiced in Atlanta?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
doc holliday
Who was described in 1939 as a philosopher who employed scientific methods for therapeutic purposes?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
sigmund freud
Who was in her '80s when she organized the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
susan b. anthony
Which woman from the 18th century made several attempts to meet Marat before successfully assassinating him?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
charlotte corday
Who was the abolitionist and publisher of 'The North Star' who operated a station of the Underground Railroad in Rochester?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
frederick douglass
Who was the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher known for discovering the intervals in an octave and likely played a mean triangle?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
pythagoras
Which nation was co-founded by Slovakian astronomer and soldier Milan Stefanik in 1918?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
czechoslovakia
Who was the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain from 1969 to 1974 and also the founder of Seventeen magazine?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
walter annenberg
Whose birthplace is in Frankfurt and whose annex where she wrote her diary can be visited in Amsterdam?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
anne frank
Who was the person at whose burial a band played 'Old Folks at Home' on January 21, 1864?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
stephen foster
Which English architect, who passed away in 1723 at the age of 90, was buried in his own St. Paul's Cathedral?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
christopher wren
Who's first name was misspelled as 'Donald' in the 1928 high school yearbook?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
ronald reagan
Which woman, a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrim John Howland, is the namesake of the Tony Awards?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
antoinette perry
Who was the first president of Indonesia who died in a military hospital on June 21, 1970?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
sukarno
Who was the first black Supreme Court Justice, a great-grandson of a slave, who died in 1993 at the age of 84?
Medium
Click to reveal answer
thurgood marshall