1937
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50 free 1937 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few single years left as many lasting pictures as 1937. A giant airship burned in front of the newsreel cameras, a famous pilot vanished over the Pacific, Britain crowned a king it had not expected to have, and one of the world's most photographed landmarks opened to traffic. In cinemas, a cartoon that the industry had written off as a folly changed film-making for good. This quiz walks through the whole year: the politics and the headlines, the inventions and brands that first appeared, the films, books, music and radio that people talked about, the champions of the ring, the racetrack and the gridiron, and the future stars who were born while it all went on. It even covers what was unveiled on a South Dakota mountainside on 17 September 1937. It suits anyone born in 1937, anyone with a parent or grandparent who was, and anyone planning a milestone birthday, a reunion or a history-themed quiz night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the questions work just as well read aloud to a room as played on a screen.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which lifting gas filled the German airship Hindenburg when it burned at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in May 1937?
Hydrogen
Hydrogen in the Hindenburg burned out within about ninety seconds, and 62 of the 97 people on board survived. The publicity ended the age of the passenger airship.
Q 02Which aviator vanished over the Pacific in July 1937 while trying to become the first woman to fly around the world?
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was heading for Howland Island, a flat sliver of coral under two miles long, when she disappeared. She was declared dead eighteen months later.
Q 03Which American landmark opened in May 1937 with the longest suspension span in the world?
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge wears International Orange because its architect chose that colour over a US Navy suggestion of black and yellow stripes for visibility.
Q 04Which fairy-tale heroine starred in Walt Disney's first feature-length film, which premiered in December 1937?
Snow White
Snow White was mocked in Hollywood as "Disney's Folly" during production, then earned Walt Disney an honorary Oscar that came with seven miniature statuettes.
Q 05Which canned meat brand did Hormel launch in July 1937, its name chosen through a contest with a $100 prize?
Spam
Spam was named by Ken Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel executive, and the company says only a small circle of former executives knows what the name means.
Q 06Which Tolkien novel, published in London in September 1937, began as a sentence scribbled on a blank exam page?
The Hobbit
The Hobbit reached print after publisher Stanley Unwin asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it, and the boy's favourable comments settled the decision.
Q 07Which Looney Tunes character debuted in April 1937 in a Tex Avery cartoon inspired by the director's own hunting trips?
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck first appeared in Porky's Duck Hunt, which Avery, a lifelong duck hunter, based on his outings at White Rock Lake in Dallas.
Q 08Which American socialite married the former King Edward VIII at a château in France in June 1937?
Wallis Simpson
Wallis Simpson became Duchess of Windsor that day, but letters patent from the new king stopped her sharing her husband's style of Royal Highness.
Q 09Which supermarket invention did Oklahoma grocer Sylvan Goldman introduce in June 1937, only for shoppers to shun it?
Shopping cart
The shopping cart caught on only after Goldman hired models to push carts around his store: men had found them effeminate and women thought of baby carriages.
Q 10Which doughnut chain began in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1937 with a recipe bought from a New Orleans chef?
Krispy Kreme
Krispy Kreme founder Vernon Rudolph chose the city after learning that his favourite cigarette brand, Camel, had its headquarters there.
Q 11Which president's face on Mount Rushmore was dedicated on September 17, 1937, a year after Thomas Jefferson's?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln's face was unveiled in the same year that a bill in Congress proposed adding Susan B. Anthony to the mountain. Funds were limited to heads already begun.
Q 12Which London church hosted the coronation of King George VI in May 1937, on a date first planned for his brother?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey was fitted with 28 microphones for the first coronation service broadcast on radio. Edward VIII had asked whether a coronation could be skipped altogether.
Q 13Which Picasso painting, first shown at the 1937 Paris exposition, was his response to the bombing of a Basque town?
Q 21Which American composer of Rhapsody in Blue died in July 1937, aged 38, after moving to Hollywood to score films?
George Gershwin
George Gershwin went west after Porgy and Bess failed commercially, and wrote the music for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Shall We Dance.
Q 22Which film star nicknamed the Blonde Bombshell died in June 1937, aged 26, while making Saratoga with Clark Gable?
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow died of kidney failure, and MGM finished the film with body doubles and released it less than two months later.
Q 23Which institution did President Franklin Roosevelt try to enlarge in 1937 with a bill adding up to six new members?
The Supreme Court
Guernica
Guernica was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for its pavilion, then went on tour to raise funds for Spanish war relief.
Q 14Which John Steinbeck novella of 1937 follows two migrant ranch hands and takes its title from a Robert Burns poem?
Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men was first titled Something That Happened, and Steinbeck's setter pup shredded about half of the manuscript one night.
Q 15Which boxer knocked out James Braddock in June 1937 to begin a heavyweight title reign that lasted until 1949?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis was knocked down in round one before stopping Braddock in the eighth, and he went on to win 25 consecutive title defences.
Q 16Which future US president debuted in Hollywood in 1937 as a crusading radio commentator in Love Is on the Air?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan had recently been a sports announcer for radio station WHO in Des Moines, where the film was first previewed with his parents in the audience.
Q 17Which politician succeeded Stanley Baldwin as British prime minister in May 1937, two weeks after the coronation?
Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain was 68 and widely seen as a caretaker who would soon step down in favour of a younger man. He stayed in office until May 1940.
Q 18Which three-time Oscar-winning actor, born in April 1937, learned as an adult that his supposed sister was his mother?
Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson was told the truth in 1974 by Time magazine researchers, after both his mother and the grandmother who raised him as her son had died.
Q 19Which actress, born in December 1937 to a famous film-star father, released a best-selling workout video in 1982?
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is the daughter of actor Henry Fonda, and her 1982 exercise tape launched a second career that continued for many years.
Q 20Which actor, born in Memphis in June 1937, rose to fame in the 1970s on the children's series The Electric Company?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman was raised in Mississippi, where he began acting in school plays; decades later came Oscar nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption.
The Supreme Court would have gained a justice for every sitting member over 70 under the plan, but the Senate sent the bill back to committee by 70 votes to 20.
Q 24Which month hosted a US presidential inauguration for the first time in 1937, under the Twentieth Amendment?
January
January 20 became Inauguration Day under the amendment, and the first one was a washout: it rained all morning and throughout the ceremony at the Capitol.
Q 25Which carmaker recognised the United Auto Workers in February 1937 after strikers occupied its Flint plants for 44 days?
General Motors
General Motors signed a one-page agreement, and within a year the union's membership had grown from 30,000 to 500,000.
Q 26Which fuel had a warning smell added to it after a leak destroyed the New London School in Texas in March 1937?
Natural gas
Natural gas is odourless and invisible, so the leak went unnoticed. Within weeks of the disaster a pungent sulphur compound was being added so that leaks could be smelled.
Q 27Which long-distance American footpath, first proposed in 1921, was finally completed in August 1937?
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail was completed at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, though many of its present highlights, such as Roan Mountain, were not on the 1937 route.
Q 28Which German carmaker was set up in May 1937 by the Nazi-run German Labour Front to build a small family car?
Volkswagen
Volkswagen was revived after the Second World War by a British Army officer, Major Ivan Hirst, who had been put in control of the factory.
Q 29Which Japanese carmaker, incorporated in August 1937, grew out of a family business that built automatic looms?
Toyota
Toyota swapped the family name Toyoda for a spelling that takes eight brush strokes in Japanese, a count linked with wealth and good fortune.
Q 30Which author published his first children's book in 1937 after at least 20 publishers had turned the manuscript down?
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss was saved by a chance meeting with an old college classmate who had just become juvenile editor at Vanguard Press, which printed 15,000 copies.