American History
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150 free American History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free American History trivia questions with answers. American History trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is U.S. History trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01What was the XYZ Affair of 1797-1798?
French agents demanded bribes from US envoys
French agents demanded bribes from US envoys, and when the envoys' dispatches were published, the uproar led to the undeclared Quasi-War.
Q 02What was the purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau, established in 1865?
Aid formerly enslaved people and refugees
Aid formerly enslaved people and refugees was its mission, and its agents also performed marriages for freed couples whose unions slavery had never made legal.
Q 03The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction because President Hayes did what?
Withdrew the last federal troops from the South
Withdrew the last federal troops from the South, historians largely agree: Hayes pulled the soldiers guarding the last Republican statehouses, and Democrats took over those states.
Q 04What was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)?
Congress's grant of war powers to Johnson
Congress's grant of war powers to Johnson followed alleged attacks on US Navy ships; with no declaration of war, he used it to escalate the Vietnam War.
Q 05What were the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act used to do?
Silence critics of the war
Silence critics of the war was their use: Socialist Eugene V. Debs got a ten-year sentence for an anti-war speech and ran for president from his prison cell in 1920.
Q 06What was the Lend-Lease Act of 1941?
Supplying Allied nations with materiel before US entry
Supplying Allied nations with materiel before US entry was the aim, and the president sold it by likening it to lending a neighbor your garden hose to put out a house fire.
Q 07What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott case?
Black Americans could not be citizens
Black Americans could not be citizens, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote; he hoped the ruling would settle the slavery question, but it pushed the nation closer to civil war.
Q 08Which Supreme Court case established the principle of judicial review?
Marbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison had a twist: the Court said William Marbury deserved his commission, yet refused to order its delivery because the law giving it that power was unconstitutional.
Q 09What was the Dawes Act of 1887?
A law splitting tribal lands into individual allotments
A law splitting tribal lands into individual allotments, the Dawes Act sold the 'surplus' left after allotment to white settlers, and tribes lost vast acreage.
Q 10What was the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s?
Bribes for secret leases of federal oil reserves
Bribes for secret leases of federal oil reserves sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison, yet oilman Edward Doheny was acquitted of paying the bribe Fall took.
Q 11Which treaty ended the Mexican-American War and ceded vast territories to the United States?
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was negotiated by Nicholas Trist in defiance of President Polk's order recalling him, yet Polk still sent it to the Senate.
Q 12What was the significance of Shays' Rebellion (1786-1787)?
It exposed the Articles of Confederation's weakness
It exposed the Articles of Confederation's weakness, and many leaders cited the farmers' uprising as proof a stronger national constitution was needed.
Q 13E.D. Nixon, who made Rosa Parks's arrest a test case, led Montgomery's chapter of which group?
Q 21D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, took place on what date?
June 6, 1944
June 6, 1944 became D-Day because storms forced Eisenhower to postpone the landings by a day, after forecasters predicted a brief break in the weather.
Q 22What was the significance of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848?
It was the first women's rights convention
It was the first women's rights convention, and its call for the vote nearly got dropped until Frederick Douglass spoke up for keeping it.
Q 23What economic crisis began with the stock market crash of October 1929?
The Great Depression
NAACP
E.D. Nixon had led the Montgomery NAACP, and he and white lawyer Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail before helping launch the bus boycott.
Q 14What was the Homestead Act of 1862?
A law granting 160 acres to settlers who farmed it
A law granting 160 acres to settlers who farmed it, the Homestead Act passed only after the Southern states seceded and their lawmakers left Congress.
Q 15What was the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794?
Farmers defying a federal excise tax
Farmers defying a federal excise tax on whiskey in western Pennsylvania fled when a 13,000-man militia army marched west, and the revolt collapsed without a battle.
Q 16What did the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 primarily target?
Immigrants and critics of the federal government
Immigrants and critics of the federal government were the targets, and Congressman Matthew Lyon, jailed under the Sedition Act, won re-election from his cell.
Q 17What was the Underground Railroad's purpose?
Helping enslaved people escape to the North and Canada
Helping enslaved people escape to the North and Canada was its work, and Harriet Tubman made about 13 trips back into Maryland to lead people out.
Q 18Which constitutional compromise determined how enslaved people counted toward a state's representation?
The Three-Fifths Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise counted three of every five enslaved people toward a state's House seats and direct taxes, boosting slave states' power in the House.
Q 19Who was the commanding general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War?
George Washington
George Washington led the army through the whole war, then handed his commission back to Congress in December 1783 instead of keeping command.
Q 20Why did the 1777 Battle of Saratoga matter?
It brought France into the war
It brought France into the war: after a whole British army surrendered at Saratoga, France signed a treaty of alliance with the United States in February 1778.
The Great Depression followed, and so many banks failed that Congress created the FDIC in 1933 to insure deposits and restore trust in banks.
Q 24What was the primary reason the United States entered World War I?
German U-boat attacks and the Zimmermann Telegram
German U-boat attacks and the Zimmermann Telegram did it: the intercepted telegram offered Mexico the chance to win back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona by joining Germany.
Q 25Which amendment gave women the right to vote in the United States?
The 19th
The 19th Amendment's last needed ratification hinged on 24-year-old legislator Harry Burn, who switched to yes after his mother wrote urging him to.
Q 26Which U.S. President resigned from office due to the Watergate scandal?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon resigned less than two years after winning re-election by carrying 49 of the 50 states.
Q 27What was the main goal of the Marshall Plan after World War II?
To rebuild Western European economies
To rebuild Western European economies was the aim, and the offer was open to the Soviet bloc too, but Stalin refused and kept his satellites out.
Q 28Who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln?
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth, a famous stage actor, fled Ford's Theatre on horseback and was on the run for days until Union soldiers cornered him in a barn and shot him.
Q 29What did the Monroe Doctrine (1823) primarily warn European nations against?
Further colonization in the Americas
Further colonization in the Americas was banned, but the young US lacked the navy to enforce the doctrine and could only back it up by the late 1800s.
Q 30What was the Trail of Tears?
The forced removal of Native nations from the Southeast
The forced removal of Native nations from the Southeast sent the Cherokee and other nations west, and thousands died of exposure, disease and starvation.