170 free Circus trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free circus trivia questions with answers. The circus is 250 years old and stranger than the posters. It began with a cavalry sergeant riding in a circle in a London field, its most famous elephant gave English a new word, its worst day was caused by waterproofing a tent with gasoline, and its biggest modern name refuses to use animals at all. This quiz runs 170 questions from Philip Astley and the first American circus through Barnum, Bailey and the Ringling brothers, Jumbo, the clowns and trapeze pioneers, Blondin at Niagara, the Wallendas, the Hartford fire, Ringling's closure and animal-free return, Cirque du Soleil, and the odd corners like the flea circus, the calliope and why Piccadilly Circus is called a circus. It starts easy and works up to questions for people who know who Dan Rice was. Every answer has been checked against reference sources, shown under each question once you answer, so it works for a themed party, a classroom or a general-knowledge round at pub trivia.
30 of 170 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who is regarded as the 'father of the modern circus'?
Philip Astley
The English cavalryman began trick-riding shows in a London field in 1768 and added acrobats and a clown two years later.
Q 02In what year and city did Astley put on his first public show?
1768, London
He and his wife Patty performed on Easter Monday, 4 April 1768, at Ha'penny Hatch in Lambeth, near today's Waterloo station.
Q 03What is the standard diameter of a circus ring, fixed by Astley?
42 feet
It was the minimum size that let a rider stand upright on a cantering horse; his first ring had been 65 feet.
Q 04Where does the word 'circus' come from?
Latin for 'circle'
Astley called his ring 'the Circle'; the term 'circus' was coined by his rival Charles Dibdin for the Royal Circus in 1782.
Q 05Who coined the term 'circus' when he opened the Royal Circus in London in 1782?
Charles Dibdin
He was a writer of pantomimes, working with the equestrian Charles Hughes.
Q 06What was Astley's job before he became a showman?
A cavalry sergeant major
He was apprenticed to his cabinetmaker father at nine but joined the 15th Light Dragoons at 17.
Q 07Who brought the first modern circus to the United States, opening in Philadelphia in 1793?
John Bill Ricketts
The Englishman had trained at Hughes's Royal Circus in London.
Q 08What could the final stone version of Rome's Circus Maximus seat?
250,000
Roman circuses were rectangular arenas for chariot racing, not the round tents we know; historians argue about how much they have to do with the modern circus.
Q 09In what decade was the first circus held under a canvas big top?
1820s
Joshuah Purdy Brown used a large canvas tent in 1825; touring tents overtook wooden circus buildings by the mid-19th century.
Q 10Who is generally considered the first mainstream clown, so dominant that clowns became known as 'Joeys'?
Joseph Grimaldi
His whiteface make-up design is still used; he was the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era.
Q 11Which pre-Civil War American clown popularised the phrases 'The One-Horse Show' and 'Hey, Rube!'?
Dan Rice
He was the most famous circus clown of his era.
Q 12Who performed the first flying trapeze routine, at the Cirque Napoléon in Paris in 1859?
Jules Léotard
He also invented the one-piece garment named after him and inspired 'The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze'.
Q 13What one-piece garment takes its name from the French trapeze pioneer who invented it?
The leotard
He designed the knitted one-piece for safety and agility on the trapeze.
Q 21In what year were the Ringling and Barnum & Bailey circuses combined into one show?
1919
Wartime labour shortages and rail complications made running two separate circuses impossible.
Q 22Which US city became Ringling's winter headquarters in 1927?
Sarasota, Florida
John Ringling moved it there; the company is now based in Ellenton, Florida.
Q 23What was the billing slogan of Barnum's, and later Ringling's, circus?
The Greatest Show on Earth
Barnum used it for the show Castello and Coup built in Delavan, Wisconsin.
Q 14Which tightrope walker crossed the Niagara Gorge in 1859, later blindfolded, on stilts and cooking an omelette?
Charles Blondin
Born Jean François Gravelet, he also carried his manager Harry Colcord across on his back.
Q 15What was the name of the elephant Barnum bought from London Zoo in 1882 for £2,000?
Jumbo
He was an African bush elephant born in Sudan; the sale caused a national outcry in Britain.
Q 16What lasting effect did Barnum's famous elephant have on the English language?
A new word for anything very large
He also became the mascot of Tufts University, to which Barnum gave his stuffed hide.
Q 17How did Jumbo die in 1885?
Hit by a locomotive in Ontario
Barnum claimed Jumbo died saving the smaller elephant Tom Thumb from the train.
Q 18Which university's sports teams are nicknamed the Jumbos, after Barnum's elephant?
Tufts
Barnum was one of the university's first trustees; the taxidermied Jumbo was destroyed in a 1975 fire.
Q 19Who persuaded P. T. Barnum out of retirement in 1871 to lend his name to their circus?
Dan Castello and William Cameron Coup
Coup also pioneered multiple rings and moving the circus by train.
Q 20Where and when did five of the seven Ringling brothers start their circus?
Baraboo, Wisconsin, 1884
Baraboo is now home to the Circus World museum; the brothers bought Barnum & Bailey in 1907 after Bailey's death.
Q 24On what date did the Hartford circus fire, one of the worst fire disasters in US history, occur?
July 6, 1944
At least 167 people died in a Ringling big top attended by 6,000 to 8,000.
Q 25Why did the Hartford big top burn so fast?
Paraffin-and-gasoline waterproofing
Melting wax rained down on the crowd, and big-cat chutes blocked two exits.
Q 26A photo of which sad-faced tramp clown with a water bucket named the Hartford fire 'the day the clowns cried'?
Emmett Kelly
The Flying Wallendas and a 13-year-old Charles Nelson Reilly were among the survivors.
Q 27Which family bought Ringling from the Ringlings in 1967?
The Felds
Irvin Feld sold it to Mattel in 1971 and bought it back a decade later; his son Kenneth later took over Feld Entertainment.
Q 28What did Irvin Feld found in 1968 to revive a neglected craft?
A Clown College
He also bought a whole European circus for $2 million just to get animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams.
Q 29When did Ringling retire its elephants?
May 2016
The plan had been 2018; the retirement was accelerated and the whole circus closed eight months later.
Q 30Where did Ringling give its final show before its six-year hiatus, on May 21, 2017?
Nassau Coliseum on Long Island
Weak attendance, animal-rights protests and costs were blamed.