1927
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free 1927 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The year 1927 packed in more firsts than most decades manage. A young airmail pilot crossed the Atlantic alone, cinema audiences heard an actor speak from the screen, and a baseball slugger set a home run mark that lasted a generation. Engineers, physicists and candy makers were just as busy, and a great flood reshaped American politics. This quiz covers the whole year: the flights, films, music and radio programmes people talked about, the inventions and snacks that first appeared, the sporting contests and champions, the science that changed how we see the universe, and the headlines from Washington to Moscow. A run of questions is given over to the actors, writers and public figures who were born in 1927. It suits anyone born in 1927, anyone with a parent or grandparent who was, and anyone planning a milestone birthday, a reunion or a 1920s quiz night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the questions work as well read aloud to a room as they do played on a screen.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pilot won the $25,000 Orteig Prize in May 1927 by flying alone and nonstop from New York to Paris?
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built in San Diego and now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Q 02Which 1927 Warner Bros. film starring Al Jolson is remembered as the first feature-length talking picture?
The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer has synchronized singing and speech in only several isolated sequences, played back from Vitaphone discs, and features six songs performed by Jolson.
Q 03Which New York Yankees slugger hit 60 home runs in 1927, a single-season record that stood until 1961?
Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth hit number 60 on September 30 off pitcher Tom Zachary, beating his own previous record by a single home run.
Q 04Which monument did sculptor Gutzon Borglum begin carving in October 1927, a job that lasted fourteen years?
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore was picked partly because it faces southeast and catches the most sunlight, and Borglum's son Lincoln took over the project after his father died in 1941.
Q 05Which powdered drink did Edwin Perkins create in Nebraska in 1927 by drying out his Fruit Smack concentrate?
Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid was turned into a powder to cut shipping costs, and it is now Nebraska's official soft drink.
Q 06Which car, nicknamed the Tin Lizzie, ended production in May 1927 after more than 15 million had been built?
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T remained the best-selling car in history until the Volkswagen Beetle overtook it in 1972.
Q 07Which invention did 21-year-old Philo Farnsworth demonstrate in 1927 by transmitting a single straight line?
Television
Television's scanning lines came to Farnsworth as a farm boy, inspired by the back-and-forth motion used to plow a field.
Q 08Which animator co-created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Universal in 1927, only to lose the character a year later?
Walt Disney
Walt Disney's company got Oswald back in 2006 by trading sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC in exchange for the character.
Q 09Which touring basketball team played its first road game in Hinckley, Illinois, in January 1927?
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters came from Chicago's South Side; promoter Abe Saperstein chose the name because Harlem was seen as the centre of Black American culture.
Q 10Which candy, named from the German word for peppermint, was first sold in Vienna in 1927 by Eduard Haas III?
Pez
Pez was pitched to adults as an alternative to tobacco, and its first dispensers, introduced in 1949, were shaped like a cigarette lighter.
Q 11Which river's 1927 flood, the most destructive in US history, left more than 700,000 people homeless?
Mississippi
The Mississippi flood made a national hero of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, whose relief work helped carry him to the presidency the following year.
Q 12Which pair of anarchists were executed in Massachusetts in August 1927 after protests in cities around the world?
Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti were declared unfairly tried by Governor Michael Dukakis on the 50th anniversary of their execution, though his proclamation was not a pardon.
Q 13Which European capital was linked to New York in January 1927 by the first commercial transatlantic telephone service?
London
Q 21Which actor, born prematurely in Miami in February 1927, became the first Black winner of the Best Actor Oscar?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier grew up in the Bahamas; his parents were only in Florida to sell tomatoes, and his unexpected birth there made him a US citizen.
Q 22Which country was the birthplace in March 1927 of Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Colombia
Colombia's small town of Aracataca, where he was born, inspired Macondo, the fictional village in his novels.
Q 23Which actor, born in October 1927, played James Bond in seven films, beginning with Live and Let Die?
Roger Moore
London callers paid £9 for three minutes on the new radio service, and a telephone cable across the Atlantic did not open until TAT-1 in 1956.
Q 14Which silent star became known as the It Girl after playing a plucky shopgirl in the 1927 comedy It?
Clara Bow
Clara Bow shared the screen with a young Gary Cooper, who was cast in a minor role as a newspaper reporter.
Q 15Which city hosted Australia's Parliament for the first time in May 1927, taking over from Melbourne?
Canberra
Canberra's new Parliament House was opened by the Duke of York, who unlocked the front doors with a golden key, while Dame Nellie Melba sang the national anthem.
Q 16Which Fritz Lang science-fiction film, written with Thea von Harbou, had its premiere in Berlin in January 1927?
Metropolis
Metropolis became the first film inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, in 2001.
Q 17Which Welsh club beat Arsenal in the 1927 FA Cup final, the only time a team from outside England has won it?
Cardiff City
Cardiff City's winner came when Arsenal goalkeeper Dan Lewis let a shot slip out of his hands and knocked the ball into the net with his elbow.
Q 18Which Bolshevik was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party in November 1927, leaving Joseph Stalin in control?
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky was exiled to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan early the following year and deported from the Soviet Union in 1929.
Q 19Which Hudson River tunnel opened in November 1927 as the world's first mechanically ventilated underwater road tunnel?
Holland
The Holland Tunnel is named for chief engineer Clifford Holland, who died in 1924 before it was finished; its ventilation was tested by releasing gas clouds in one of the tubes.
Q 20Which boxer kept his heavyweight title against Jack Dempsey in the 1927 Long Count Fight at Soldier Field?
Gene Tunney
Gene Tunney was knocked down in the seventh round, but the referee's count was delayed until Dempsey finally went to a neutral corner.
Roger Moore trained at RADA in the same class as Lois Maxwell, who later played Miss Moneypenny opposite him.
Q 24Which pope, born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria in April 1927, became the first to resign since 1415?
Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI stepped down in February 2013, citing his advanced age, and was known as pope emeritus for the rest of his life.
Q 25Which performer, born in January 1927, recorded Santa Baby and later played Catwoman in the Batman series?
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt found new fans late in life as the voice of the villain Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove, a part that won her two Emmy Awards.
Q 26Which playwright, born in the Bronx on July 4, 1927, wrote The Odd Couple and The Goodbye Girl?
Neil Simon
Neil Simon had four shows playing on Broadway at the same time in 1966.
Q 27Which tennis player, born in South Carolina in August 1927, was the first Black player to win a Grand Slam title?
Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson later changed sports, and in 1964 became the first African-American woman on the LPGA golf tour.
Q 28Which First Lady, born in Plains, Georgia, in August 1927, made mental health her signature cause?
Rosalynn Carter
Rosalynn Carter was married to Jimmy Carter from 1946 until her death in 2023, a marriage of 77 years.
Q 29Which actor, born in September 1927, wore an artificial eye from childhood and played Lieutenant Columbo?
Peter Falk
Peter Falk lost his right eye to a tumour at the age of three, and the artificial one gave him his trademark squint.
Q 30Which Patton star, born in Virginia in October 1927, became the first actor to decline an Oscar?
George C. Scott
George C. Scott warned the Academy months in advance that he would refuse, because he believed performances cannot be compared, and he won anyway.