George Washington
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145 free George Washington trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
62 free George Washington trivia questions with answers. George Washington led the Continental Army to victory, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and set the standard for the American presidency. From cherry tree myths to his whiskey distillery, test how much you really know about the Father of His Country.
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Q 01What was George Washington's role during the Constitutional Convention of 1787?
Presiding officer
Presiding officer: Robert Morris moved his nomination on May 25, 1787 and the vote was unanimous, though Washington had needed persuading even to attend the convention.
Q 02By which nickname is George Washington most widely known?
Father of His Country
Father of His Country was in print as early as 1778, when a Pennsylvania German almanac hailed him as 'Des Landes Vater' while the war he was leading was still far from won.
Q 03Which New Jersey town did Washington's army storm the morning after Christmas 1776, capturing most of its Hessian garrison?
Trenton
Trenton: on December 26, 1776 Washington's men captured almost two-thirds of the Hessian garrison with minimal losses, a win that lifted the army's sinking morale and spurred re-enlistments.
Q 04Washington's retirement after two terms set a custom that which president was the first to break?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt won a third term in 1940 and a fourth in 1944; the 22nd Amendment of 1951 then turned Washington's two-term custom into law.
Q 05In the famous legend, what does young George Washington confess to damaging with his hatchet?
A cherry tree
A cherry tree: the tale, with its line about not telling a lie, turned up only in the fifth edition of a posthumous biography in 1806 and is generally regarded as an invention.
Q 06What were Washington's dentures actually made of?
Ivory and human teeth
Ivory and human teeth, set in metal with springs, made up his dentures; none were wooden, and by his 1789 inauguration he had a single natural tooth left.
Q 07Who did George Washington marry in 1759?
Martha Dandridge Custis
Martha Dandridge Custis was a 27-year-old widow when they wed on January 6, 1759; her share of the Custis estate made Washington one of the wealthiest men in Virginia.
Q 08What did Washington famously cross on Christmas night, 1776?
The Delaware
The Delaware: Washington planned three separate crossings that night, but the icy river stopped the other two, and his own column of about 2,400 men marched on alone to attack that morning.
Q 09What key warning did Washington include in his Farewell Address of 1796?
Partisanship and foreign influence
Partisanship and foreign influence, along with sectional rivalry, were the dangers he named; the address was never delivered as a speech but ran in a Philadelphia newspaper on September 19, 1796.
Q 10Which battle effectively ended the Revolutionary War with Cornwallis's surrender?
Siege of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown ended on October 19, 1781 with Cornwallis absent: he sent his deputy with the sword, so Washington directed him to his own second-in-command, Benjamin Lincoln.
Q 11Which form of address for Washington as chief executive won out in the 1789 debate over titles?
Mr. President
Mr. President won out when the Senate, after debating grander styles such as 'His Highness' and 'Protector of Their Liberties', gave way to the House's plain form, which Washington accepted.
Q 12Which body, in its first-ever vote, unanimously chose Washington as president in 1789?
The Electoral College
The Electoral College's 69 electors each gave Washington one of their two votes; he had official word only on April 14, when the secretary of Congress rode up to Mount Vernon with the letter.
Q 13Baron von Steuben, who drilled Washington's army into shape in 1778, was an officer from which European state?
Q 21What was the harsh winter encampment of 1777-1778 where Washington's army endured severe hardship?
Valley Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the Continental Army's brutal winter camp of 1777-78, where disease, cold and hunger ravaged the troops; the army emerged stronger after Steuben's training that spring.
Q 22How many children did George and Martha Washington have together?
No children
No children: the couple had none together, though they raised Martha's two children from her first marriage and, later, two of her grandchildren.
Q 23What did Washington issue in April 1793 when revolutionary France went to war with Britain?
The Proclamation of Neutrality
Prussia
Prussia: Steuben had risen only to captain in Frederick the Great's army, but Benjamin Franklin's letters from France presented him as a lieutenant general, and Washington handed him the army's training.
Q 14Where was George Washington inaugurated as the first president?
New York City
New York City, then the capital: Washington took the oath on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street on April 30, 1789, then read his inaugural address in the Senate Chamber.
Q 15Which 1754 assignment brought the 22-year-old Washington into his first clash with French forces?
The Ohio Valley expedition
The Ohio Valley expedition: Lieutenant Colonel Washington led Virginia troops toward the forks of the Ohio, where a May ambush and a July surrender set Britain and France on the road to war.
Q 16Washington's Potomac estate was renamed Mount Vernon by his half-brother in honor of whom?
A British vice admiral
A British vice admiral: Edward Vernon had commanded Washington's half-brother in the War of Jenkins' Ear, and the veteran gave his old commander's name to the estate until then called Little Hunting Creek.
Q 17Who served as Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton served as the first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795, establishing the national bank, federal tax system, and the foundation of American financial policy.
Q 18Who served as Washington's first Secretary of State?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson took up the post in March 1790 and held it until the last day of 1793; his feud with the Treasury chief over the bank and France split the government into the first two parties.
Q 19How did George Washington die in December 1799?
A throat infection
A throat infection closed his airway within two days of a ride through snow and sleet; his doctors bled him four times, drawing about five pints of blood, and nothing they tried eased his breathing.
Q 20What domestic uprising in 1794 did Washington personally lead troops to suppress?
The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 erupted in western Pennsylvania over a federal excise tax on distilled spirits. Washington led 13,000 militia to quell the uprising, marking the first time a sitting president commanded troops in the field.
Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 declared that the United States would remain impartial in the conflict between France and Great Britain, establishing an early precedent for American non-interventionism.
Q 24Whose 1800 life of Washington launched legends like the boy and the hatchet?
Mason Locke Weems
Mason Locke Weems, a travelling parson and bookseller, wrote it to sell: the book was an instant bestseller, and he kept adding stories to later editions that no record of Washington's life supports.
Q 25What title did the Continental Congress vote Washington in June 1775?
Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief: Congress elected him unanimously, partly for his military experience and partly in the belief that choosing a Virginian would bind the colonies together.
Q 26Which 1794 agreement, negotiated by the Chief Justice, resolved issues with Britain and averted a second war?
Jay Treaty
The Jay Treaty got Britain to hand over the frontier forts it had promised to leave in 1783; it proved unpopular, and even Washington did not think it favorable, but it kept the peace.
Q 27What did Washington's will direct for the enslaved people he owned outright?
Freed on Martha's death
Freed on Martha's death: that was the will's term for the 123 people he owned; uneasy among people whose freedom waited on her dying, Martha released them early, on January 1, 1801.
Q 28Which early profession did Washington pursue as a teenager before his military career?
Land surveyor
Land surveyor: Washington got a surveyor's license from the College of William & Mary in 1749 and took his first county surveyor post at 17; by 1752 he had bought almost 1,500 acres in the Shenandoah Valley.
Q 29Which French general marched 5,000 troops with Washington to trap Cornwallis in 1781?
Comte de Rochambeau
Rochambeau landed at Newport with 5,000 veteran troops in 1780 and talked Washington out of attacking New York in favor of Virginia. New to siege warfare, Washington often deferred to him, yet Rochambeau never challenged his command.
Q 30What unprecedented act did Washington perform after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783?
Resigned his commission to Congress
He resigned his commission to Congress at Annapolis on December 23, 1783 and went home; George III later told the painter Benjamin West that giving up power had made Washington the most distinguished man alive.