50 free Christopher Columbus trivia questions with answers. Christopher Columbus is one of the most argued-about people in history, and most of what people think they know about him is wrong. This quiz sticks to what the records actually say: where he was born, who paid for the 1492 voyage and what he was promised, what the three ships were really called, where he made landfall, what happened to the men he left behind, and how a lunar eclipse saved his crew on Jamaica in 1504. It runs from easy questions (how many voyages, which ship ran aground on Christmas Day) through the second, third and fourth voyages, the arrest and the chains, the wandering of his remains between Spain, Santo Domingo and Havana, and the history of Columbus Day itself, from a Tammany Society dinner in 1792 to Indigenous Peoples' Day. There are questions on the flat-earth myth, the Columbian exchange and the cities and countries that carry his name. Every answer has been checked against the encyclopedia articles on Columbus, his voyages and the holiday, and each question shows its source. Use it for a Columbus Day classroom round, a history quiz night, or to settle an argument.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city-state was Christopher Columbus born?
Genoa
The scholarly consensus puts his birth in the Republic of Genoa between late August and October 1451; the family later moved along the coast to Savona.
Q 02How many transatlantic voyages to the Americas did Columbus complete?
Four
All four were sponsored by the Crown of Castile, between 1492 and 1504.
Q 03Which of the three ships on the first voyage was the largest, a carrack under Columbus's direct command?
The Santa María
It was owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa, who later drew one of the earliest maps showing the New World.
Q 04From which Spanish port did the first voyage depart on 3 August 1492?
Palos de la Frontera
The ships went down the Río Tinto into the Atlantic; the second voyage a year later left from Cádiz instead.
Q 05On what date in 1492 did Columbus's fleet first make landfall in the Americas?
12 October
The date is still the traditional day of Columbus Day and Día de la Raza across the Americas and Spain.
Q 06The natives called the island of first landfall Guanahani. What name did Columbus give it?
San Salvador
The name means 'Holy Savior'; the island lies in what is now the Bahamas, though exactly which island has been debated for centuries.
Q 07Which monarchs sponsored the 1492 voyage?
Isabella I and Ferdinand II
The Catholic Monarchs agreed only after the fall of Granada in January 1492 and years of Columbus lobbying several courts, including Portugal and England.
Q 08What title was Columbus promised in the April 1492 Capitulations of Santa Fe if he succeeded?
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
The agreement also entitled him to a tenth of all revenues from the new lands in perpetuity, a clause his heirs spent decades litigating.
Q 09What fraction of all revenues from the new lands was Columbus promised in perpetuity?
One-tenth
The share was called the diezmo; the Crown's failure to honour it led to the long-running pleitos colombinos lawsuits brought by his sons.
Q 10What was the real name of the caravel nicknamed La Niña?
Santa Clara
Spanish ships were named for saints and given nicknames; the Santa María's own nickname was La Gallega, and La Pinta's real name is unknown.
Q 11The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by brothers from which seafaring family?
Pinzón
Martín Alonso captained the Pinta and Vicente Yáñez the Niña; Martín Alonso later took the Pinta off on an unauthorised gold hunt.
Q 12Which sailor is credited with first sighting land at about 2 a.m. on the morning of the 1492 landfall?
Rodrigo de Triana
Columbus later claimed he had seen a light hours earlier, and took the lifetime pension the monarchs had promised to the first man to sight land.
Q 13On which day of 1492 did the Santa María run aground and have to be abandoned?
Christmas Day
The wreck's timbers were used to build the fort of La Navidad, named for the day it was lost.
Q 21What did Columbus name the first island of his second voyage, sighted on 3 November 1493, after the day of the week?
Dominica
It was a Sunday; the island still carries the name today and is a separate country from the Dominican Republic.
Q 22On which voyage did Columbus first sight Trinidad and the northern coast of South America?
Third (1498)
The men sighted Trinidad on 31 July 1498 after being becalmed in the doldrums for days in punishing heat.
Q 23Which royal commissioner arrested Columbus in 1500 and shipped him back to Spain in chains?
Francisco de Bobadilla
Only the ship's cook was willing to put the admiral in irons, and Columbus insisted on wearing them for the whole voyage home.
Q 14How many men did Columbus leave at La Navidad, the first Spanish settlement in the Americas?
39
When he returned in November 1493 the fort was in ruins and every man was dead, killed after quarrels over gold and women.
Q 15In which modern country was La Navidad located?
Haiti
The later settlement La Isabela, founded on the second voyage, lay to the east in what is now the Dominican Republic and lasted barely longer.
Q 16What collective name did Columbus give the peoples he met, a label that stuck for centuries?
Los Indios
He believed he had reached the Indies; the peoples he actually met first were the Lucayan, Taíno and Arawak.
Q 17Columbus's ships were repaired and reprovisioned in which city before departing on 6 September 1492?
San Sebastián de La Gomera
The Pinta's rudder had broken three days out and was replaced on Gran Canaria; the Niña's lateen sails were re-rigged square at La Gomera.
Q 18On returning in March 1493, Columbus was received by the Catholic Monarchs in which city?
Barcelona
He presented them with kidnapped Taínos, plants and gold; a storm had already forced him into Lisbon on the way home, where King John II accused him of breaking a treaty.
Q 19How many ships sailed on Columbus's second voyage in September 1493?
17
The fleet carried nearly 1,500 men, including farmers, stonemasons and priests, plus a young Juan Ponce de León.
Q 20Which island, known to the Taíno as Boriquen, did Columbus name San Juan Bautista in 1493?
Puerto Rico
The name later migrated to the capital city, while the island took the name of the harbour, 'rich port'.
Q 24After returning to Spain in chains, how long were Columbus and his brothers jailed before Ferdinand freed them?
Six weeks
Summoned to the Alhambra in December 1500, he wore shortened sleeves so the marks of the irons would show, and wept as he begged forgiveness.
Q 25On his fourth voyage Columbus was denied harbour on Hispaniola despite warning of a storm. What happened next?
The first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into a hurricane
The fleet carrying Bobadilla and Columbus's own confiscated gold sailed out into the hurricane; Columbus's ships sheltered at a river mouth and survived.
Q 26Columbus reached the Bay Islands in 1502, off the coast of which modern country?
Honduras
There his brother met native merchants in a canoe 'as long as a galley', and the Spaniards were introduced to cacao.
Q 27What name did Columbus give the Cayman Islands when he sighted them on 10 May 1503?
Las Tortugas
The name means 'the turtles', for the many sea turtles there; the present name comes from a Carib word for crocodile.
Q 28On which island were Columbus and his men stranded for months in 1503–04?
Jamaica
The ships were run ashore in Saint Ann Parish on 25 June 1503; the governor of Hispaniola, who loathed Columbus, obstructed every rescue attempt.
Q 29How did the marooned Columbus persuade the islanders to keep feeding his hungry crew?
He predicted a lunar eclipse
Using astronomical tables he foretold the eclipse of 29 February 1504 and claimed his God was angry; the frightened islanders resumed provisions.
Q 30Who paddled a canoe to Hispaniola to fetch help for the stranded fourth-voyage crew?
Diego Méndez
The trip took him four days by canoe; the rescue caravel he eventually sent took 45 days to cover the same water against the wind.