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150 free Classic trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free classic trivia questions with answers. Think you know a little bit about everything? This classic trivia quiz puts your general knowledge to the ultimate test with 150 questions across every major category. From the solar system to the Sistine Chapel, from slam dunks to Shakespeare, see how you stack up against trivia lovers everywhere.
30 of 150 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the largest planet in our solar system?
Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet yet has the shortest day: it spins once in under 10 hours, fast enough to bulge at its equator and pull its clouds into the stripes seen through a telescope.
Q 02Which country gifted the Statue of Liberty to the United States?
France
France's people gave it; Bartholdi designed the statue, Gustave Eiffel built its iron framework, and it crossed the Atlantic in crates to be assembled in 1886.
Q 03What is the chemical symbol for gold?
Au
The chemical symbol for gold is Au, derived from the Latin word "aurum" meaning gold. Silver's symbol Ag comes from the Latin "argentum."
Q 04The Titanic was bound for which city when it sank on its maiden voyage in 1912?
New York
New York never saw the Titanic arrive: the Cunard liner Carpathia pulled about 700 survivors from the lifeboats and landed them there three days after the sinking.
Q 05What is the smallest country in the world by land area?
Vatican City
Vatican City, smaller than many city parks, has been a state only since 1929, when a treaty with Mussolini's Italy ended nearly six decades in which the popes called themselves prisoners in the Vatican.
Q 06Who painted the Mona Lisa?
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci never handed the portrait to the family who ordered it: he took it with him when he moved to France, where King Francis I acquired it, which is why it hangs in the Louvre.
Q 07What is the capital city of Australia?
Canberra
Canberra was purpose-built as the capital to settle the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne, the two cities many people assume hold the title.
Q 08Which element has the atomic number 1?
Hydrogen
Hydrogen has a single proton, which is what atomic number 1 means; its name means 'water-former', because burning it in air produces water.
Q 09Who wrote the play Romeo and Juliet?
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare took the plot from Arthur Brooke's 1562 poem but crammed its nine months of events into a few frantic days, so that the lovers meet, marry and die within a week.
Q 10Wimbledon's tennis championships are hosted by a club that was founded for which other lawn game?
Croquet
Croquet: the All England Croquet Club took up lawn tennis in 1875 as interest in croquet waned, and its first tennis championship, in 1877, drew just 22 players; croquet is still in the club's name.
Q 11What is the hardest natural substance on Earth?
Diamond
Diamond resists scratching better than any other natural material, yet hard is not the same as tough: the crystal splits cleanly along certain planes, so a sharp hammer blow can shatter it.
Q 12Which planet is orbited by two small moons called Phobos and Deimos?
Mars
Mars has two potato-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, which may be captured asteroids; the planet's red colour comes from rust in the dust that covers its surface.
Q 13What is the longest river in Africa?
Nile
The Nile is Africa's longest river, flowing north from the Great Lakes region to the Mediterranean, yet the Congo, the continent's second longest, carries far more water to the sea.
Q 21Which US president, sworn in only months earlier, led the country when World War II ended in 1945?
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman had been vice president for only 82 days when Roosevelt died in April 1945, and it was only then that he was told the atomic bomb existed.
Q 22Which mammal is known to have the longest lifespan?
Bowhead whale
The bowhead whale may live more than 200 years: old harpoon points found embedded in whales caught generations later gave the first clue, and newer dating methods point the same way.
Q 23What does DNA stand for?
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Q 14Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong had to take over the controls in the final minutes, when he saw the computer steering the lander toward a crater strewn with boulders, and flew on until he found level ground.
Q 15What is the most spoken native language in the world?
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese has close to a billion native speakers, more than any other language; English ranks only third by that count and becomes the world's most spoken once second-language speakers are added.
Q 16Which artist is famous for cutting off his own ear?
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh took a razor to his left ear in Arles on 23 December 1888 after a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, and within weeks had painted himself with the bandage still on.
Q 17Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in any ocean, lies in which trench?
Mariana Trench
Mariana Trench: its Challenger Deep, nearly 11 km down, is named after HMS Challenger, the British survey ship whose crew first sounded those depths in 1875.
Q 18In Greek mythology, who is the king of the gods?
Zeus
Zeus took the throne by force, leading the revolt that overthrew his father Cronus and the Titans; he then shared out the world with his brothers, Poseidon taking the sea and Hades the underworld.
Q 19Which fruit is also known as the 'alligator pear'?
Avocado
Avocado: 'alligator pear' is a garbling of the Spanish aguacate, probably helped along by the fruit's pebbly skin; mashed, it is the base of guacamole, a Nahuatl word meaning 'avocado sauce'.
Q 20How many strings does a standard guitar have?
6
6 strings, tuned E-A-D-G-B-E from low to high. The low E was the last to arrive: baroque guitars had five pairs of strings, and the sixth was added in the late 1700s.
Deoxyribonucleic acid: 'nucleic' because Friedrich Miescher first found the substance in the nuclei of cells in 1869, working with pus from used hospital bandages, and 'deoxyribo' after its sugar, deoxyribose.
Q 24Which country had won the most FIFA World Cup titles as of the 2022 tournament?
Brazil
Brazil kept the original Jules Rimet Trophy for good after its third title in 1970, only for the cup to be stolen in 1983 and never recovered; wins in 1994 and 2002 took the count to five.
Q 25What is the currency of Japan?
Yen
Yen means 'round', after the shape of a coin: the word shares its root with the yuan next door, and Korea's won comes from the same character.
Q 26Who developed the theory of general relativity?
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein published the theory in 1915 and became world-famous four years later, when astronomers led by Arthur Eddington watched a solar eclipse and found starlight bending around the Sun just as he had predicted.
Q 27In which Shakespeare play do the fairy king and queen Oberon and Titania quarrel?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream, written around 1595–1596: Oberon and Titania's quarrel over a changeling boy sets off the magical mischief in the woods outside Athens.
Q 28What is the tallest mountain in the world?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest's summit stands 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) above sea level by the 2020 joint Nepal–China survey; measured from its underwater base, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is taller.
Q 29Which famous scientist formulated the three laws of motion?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton set them out in his Principia of 1687, a book that might never have appeared without Edmond Halley, who urged him to publish and paid for the printing himself.
Q 30Japanese miso soup is made by dissolving fermented soybean paste into which stock?
Dashi
Dashi is where umami was discovered: in 1908 the Tokyo chemist Kikunae Ikeda traced the savoury taste of its kelp broth to glutamate and named the sensation umami.