1776
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50 free 1776 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few years carry as much weight as 1776. In twelve months a quarrel between Britain and thirteen of its colonies became a war for a new country, with a founding document argued over line by line in a hot Philadelphia summer and an army that spent the autumn in retreat before one winter night changed its luck. This quiz covers the whole year, not only the Fourth. There are questions on how the Declaration was drafted, edited, signed and looked after, on the battles and blunders of Washington's first full campaign, and on the people around them, from delegates and spies to wives writing home. A handful step outside America to the books, inventions and voyages that share the date, and to the places where the number 1776 still turns up today, including the Broadway show and the history bestseller that took it as a title. It is written for history fans, teachers planning an Independence Day lesson, and anyone hosting a patriotic quiz night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which New York landmark bears the date July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals on a tablet?
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty carries the date as JULY IV MDCCLXXVI on the tablet in her left hand. Sculptor Bartholdi admired the Constitution, but chose the date of the Declaration of Independence instead.
Q 02Which 33-year-old Virginian wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in rented rooms in June 1776?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson drafted it between June 11 and June 28 on the second floor of a rented house in Philadelphia. Congress then cut nearly a fourth of his text.
Q 03Which secret society, a staple of conspiracy theories, did a Bavarian professor found on May 1, 1776?
The Illuminati
The Illuminati began as the Perfectibilists, with the Owl of Minerva as their symbol. Bavaria's ruler outlawed the order by edict in 1784, less than a decade after it was formed.
Q 04Whose large, stylish signature on the Declaration of Independence turned his name into American slang for an autograph?
John Hancock
John Hancock signed as president of Congress when the document was adopted. He sent a printed copy to General Washington with instructions to have it read to the troops.
Q 05Which town did Washington's army storm the morning after crossing the icy Delaware River on Christmas night 1776?
Trenton
Trenton was held by about 1,400 German soldiers, and almost two-thirds of them were captured. The win lifted the army's sinking morale and inspired men to re-enlist.
Q 06Which California city grew from a Spanish presidio and mission founded in 1776, the year of American independence?
San Francisco
San Francisco's presidio was established on September 17, 1776, and its mission chapel was dedicated that October. The adobe church at Mission Dolores, finished in 1791, is the oldest intact structure in the city.
Q 07Which anonymous pamphlet, printed in Philadelphia in January 1776, became a sensation by urging a break with Britain?
Common Sense
Common Sense was read aloud in taverns and meeting places across the colonies. Its author had arrived from England little more than a year before it appeared.
Q 08Which New York skyscraper was designed to stand exactly 1,776 feet tall, honoring the year of American independence?
One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center reached its symbolic height in May 2013, when the final piece of its spire was lifted into place. Its roof sits at 1,368 feet, matching the original North Tower.
Q 09Which unalienable right does the Declaration of Independence list third, where John Locke's trio ended with estate?
The pursuit of happiness
The pursuit of happiness closes the best-known sentence in the document. Locke, writing in 1689, had argued that political society exists to protect a person's property.
Q 10Which 21-year-old Connecticut officer did the British hang as a spy in New York in September 1776?
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale had planned to pose as a Dutch schoolteacher looking for work, yet reportedly carried a Yale diploma bearing his real name. Connecticut made him its official state hero in 1985.
Q 11On which date in 1776 did Congress actually vote for independence, before approving the Declaration's final wording?
July 2
July 2 was the day twelve colonies approved the resolution of independence while New York abstained. One delegate wrote home that this date would be celebrated by generations to come.
Q 12Which name, taken from a German state, did Americans give the 30,000 soldiers Britain hired to fight the Revolution?
Hessians
Hessians made up about a quarter of Britain's land forces in the war. Their own rulers hired them out as whole units, so they fought under their own flags and officers.
Q 13Which besieged city did British troops abandon in March 1776 after American cannon appeared on Dorchester Heights?
Boston
Q 21Which landmark economics book did Scotsman Adam Smith publish in March 1776, four months before American independence?
The Wealth of Nations
The Wealth of Nations uses Smith's famous image of an invisible hand only once. Five editions were published during his lifetime.
Q 22Which English historian published the first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in February 1776?
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon needed six volumes to finish the work, the last three appearing together in 1788. He followed the story from the height of imperial power all the way to the fall of Byzantium.
Q 23Which British explorer left Plymouth in July 1776 to seek the Northwest Passage, on the voyage that cost him his life?
Boston still marks the British departure every March 17 as Evacuation Day. The local holiday happens to fall on Saint Patrick's Day, a coincidence that helped it become official.
Q 14From which captured stronghold did Henry Knox haul 60 tons of cannon some 300 miles to Washington's army in early 1776?
Fort Ticonderoga
Fort Ticonderoga's guns travelled by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledge across half-frozen rivers and the Berkshire hills. One historian called the trek among the most stupendous feats of logistics of the war.
Q 15In which present-day New York City borough was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War fought in August 1776?
Brooklyn
Brooklyn saw Washington's army beaten and then saved. Two nights after the defeat he ferried every soldier across to Manhattan without losing a single life.
Q 16Which animal gave its name to David Bushnell's one-man submarine, which tried to sink a British flagship in 1776?
Turtle
Turtle was the first submarine with a documented record of use in combat. Every attempt to fix explosives to British warships in New York Harbor failed, and the British sank the ship carrying it later that year.
Q 17Which former English corset maker wrote The American Crisis, published a week before Washington crossed the Delaware?
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine had been a master staymaker in Kent before sailing for America in 1774. His essay lifted the army's morale by urging soldiers to believe that victory was still possible.
Q 18Which Founding Father's son, the last royal governor of his colony, was jailed in 1776 for staying loyal to Britain?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin's son William spent two years locked up in Connecticut, then emerged as the chief figure among the Loyalists. He died in London in 1813.
Q 19Who urged her husband, a Massachusetts delegate to Congress, to remember the ladies in a March 1776 letter?
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams warned that women would stir up a rebellion of their own if the new laws gave them no voice. Her husband John, a future president, declined the idea.
Q 20Which soft metal lay under the gilding of the King George III monument that New Yorkers toppled in July 1776?
Lead
Lead made the two-ton monument a useful prize: it is said to have been shipped to Connecticut and cast into 42,088 bullets. It fell on the day the Declaration was read to Washington's troops.
James Cook
James Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii in February 1779. The stated purpose of the trip, taking a Pacific islander named Omai home, was a cover for the Admiralty's real plan.
Q 24Which Scottish instrument maker's steam engine, burning far less coal than earlier designs, first went on sale in 1776?
James Watt
James Watt was repairing a model engine at the University of Glasgow when he noticed how wasteful it was. His fix was a separate condenser, so the main cylinder could stay hot.
Q 25Which academic honor society did five students found at the College of William & Mary in December 1776?
Phi Beta Kappa
Phi Beta Kappa set the pattern of naming American college societies after the initials of a secret Greek motto. Its founders were students who gathered at Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern.
Q 26Which Italian scientist, born in Turin in August 1776, gave his name to the number of particles in a mole?
Amedeo Avogadro
Amedeo Avogadro took a degree in church law and practised as a lawyer before he turned to science. The constant named in his honour is roughly 6.022 × 10²³ per mole.
Q 27Where on the back of the US one-dollar bill does the year 1776 appear in Roman numerals as MDCCLXXVI?
On the pyramid's base
On the pyramid's base sits the date fixed for the reverse of the Great Seal, a side that has never been cut as a working seal. Both faces of the Seal have been printed on the dollar since 1935.
Q 28John Trumbull's painting of the draft Declaration being presented to Congress appears on the back of which US banknote?
The $2 bill
The $2 bill shows a scene often taken for the signing. Trumbull in fact painted the five-man drafting committee handing in its work on June 28, 1776, and the canvas hangs in the Capitol rotunda.
Q 29Which Philadelphia upholsterer, in a story her grandson first told in 1870, sewed the first American flag in 1776?
Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross is said to have talked Washington into five-pointed stars because they were quicker to cut. No archival evidence supports the tale, which surfaced a century after the fact.
Q 30Which King's College student raised and captained a New York artillery company in 1776, then became Washington's aide?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton recruited the 60 men himself and covered the army's rear during its retreat up Manhattan. The company's descendant is counted as the oldest active unit in the Regular Army.