49 free Harvard trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Harvard is the oldest university in the United States, the richest in the world, and the alma mater of eight presidents, but the fun facts are in the details: a founder statue modelled on a random student, a library built by a Titanic widow, a humor magazine that lives in a fake castle, and a football tie the student paper reported as a win. This quiz covers the whole story: the 1636 founding vote and John Harvard's bequest, the presidents from Increase Mather to Claudine Gay, the schools and museums, Harvard Yard and the residential houses, the Crimson, the Lampoon, Hasty Pudding, The Game against Yale, and famous alumni from W. E. B. Du Bois and Helen Keller to Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. Questions range from easy ones any Legally Blonde fan can answer to genuinely hard ones about 18th-century presidents and old libraries. Every answer has been checked against the university's documented history and the source is shown after each question.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Harvard, the oldest US institution of higher learning, founded?
1636
It was not named Harvard College until 1639, in honour of the clergyman whose bequest kept it alive.
Q 02Which body voted the £400 that founded the college?
The colony's Great and General Court
The vote came at a session that opened on 8 September and was adjourned to 28 October, the date Harvard treats as its birthday.
Q 03What did John Harvard leave the young college on his deathbed, alongside £780?
His library of about 320 books
He was a Puritan clergyman who had emigrated from England, and he never taught at the school that bears his name.
Q 04What single Latin word appears on the three open books of Harvard's shield?
Veritas
The seal was designed by William Sumner Appleton, class of 1860, though the older 1650 seal also carried 'In Christi Gloriam'.
Q 05Which of these is Harvard's official school color?
Crimson
Its sports teams take the name Harvard Crimson and compete in the Ivy League without athletic scholarships.
Q 06How many US presidents are Harvard alumni, the most of any university?
Eight
The list runs from John Adams and John Quincy Adams through the Roosevelts and Kennedy to George W. Bush.
Q 07Harvard's endowment is the largest of any university in the world. Roughly how big was it as of 2023?
$51 billion
Even so, only about 22 percent of the university's revenue comes from tuition, fees, room and board.
Q 08Harvard's oldest surviving building, completed in 1720, is which one on Harvard Yard?
Massachusetts Hall
It still houses freshmen on its upper floors, with the president's offices below.
Q 09Which library, the anchor of the world's largest academic library system, sits in Harvard Yard?
Widener
The system as a whole holds more than 20 million items across dozens of libraries.
Q 10Harvard's great library is a memorial to a 1907 graduate who died in what event?
The sinking of the Titanic
His mother Eleanor, who survived, funded the building; the story that she demanded a swimming test for graduation is a campus legend.
Q 11The main library's stacks hold about 3.5 million books along roughly how much shelving?
25 miles
The stacks double as the building's structure, making it the last major self-supporting masonry building put up in the US.
Q 12Who sculpted the John Harvard statue that stands in Harvard Yard?
Daniel Chester French
French later created the seated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.
Q 13With no likeness of John Harvard surviving, whose face inspired the sculptor of his statue?
A student named Sherman Hoar
The inscription 'John Harvard, Founder, 1638' is the basis of the tour-guide routine about the 'statue of three lies'.
Q 21The Hasty Pudding has named a Woman of the Year since 1951 and a Man of the Year since which year?
1967
Honourees are 'roasted' at a banquet where hasty pudding is served for dessert.
Q 22Mark Zuckerberg launched 'TheFacebook' from his Harvard dorm on which date?
4 February 2004
Months earlier his Facemash site, which rated students' attractiveness, had landed him in front of the Administrative Board.
Q 23Zuckerberg's earlier site Facemash asked users to do what?
Rate students' attractiveness
By the end of launch day roughly 450 users had cast at least 22,000 votes.
Q 14What do tourists do to the John Harvard statue in the mistaken belief that it is a student tradition?
Rub the toe of his left shoe
Curators restored the toe's patina in 2021 and predicted it would be rubbed off again soon.
Q 15After a 1968 rivalry game ended 29–29, the student newspaper ran which famous headline?
Harvard Beats Yale, 29–29
Harvard had scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to salvage the draw.
Q 16During the 1982 rivalry game, a weather balloon inflated at midfield bearing the letters of which school?
MIT
The balloon grew until it exploded, spraying powder over the field in one of the most famous college pranks.
Q 17Harvard's undergraduate humor magazine, founded in 1876, is called what?
The Lampoon
Its alumni include Conan O'Brien, John Updike and Robert Benchley, and it is housed in a mock-Flemish castle near Harvard Square.
Q 18In 1953 the Harvard Crimson stole the Lampoon's ibis statue and presented it to which government?
The Soviet Union
The two student publications have feuded for generations across Harvard Square.
Q 19Graduates of Harvard's humor magazine launched which magazine in 1970?
National Lampoon
Founders Doug Kenney and Henry Beard had first drawn attention with the Tolkien parody 'Bored of the Rings'.
Q 20Hasty Pudding Theatricals, formed in 1795, holds what distinction?
Oldest theatrical organization in the US
It is also the third-oldest in the world, and its cast was all-male, often in drag, until 2018.
Q 24Which 2010 film dramatised the founding of Facebook at Harvard?
The Social Network
Harvard would not allow filming on campus, so other colleges stood in for it.
Q 25The 1970 film 'Love Story' pairs a wealthy Harvard hockey player with a student from which college?
Radcliffe
Radcliffe was Harvard's women's counterpart and was formally merged into the university in 1999.
Q 26Who became Harvard's first female president in 2007?
Drew Gilpin Faust
She was the university's 28th president and had been dean of its institute for advanced study.
Q 27Which Harvard president resigned in January 2024 after the shortest tenure in its history?
Claudine Gay
Provost Alan Garber took over as interim president and was later appointed through 2026–27.
Q 28For how many years was Charles William Eliot, who modernised Harvard, its president?
40
A chemist who had studied in Germany, he founded the graduate department that awarded Harvard's first PhDs in 1873.
Q 29Who in 1708 became the first Harvard president who was not also a clergyman?
John Leverett
His predecessor Increase Mather, a Puritan minister, had held the post from 1681 to 1701.
Q 30Harvard Law School, founded in 1817, was made possible by a 1779 bequest from whom?
Isaac Royall Jr.
It is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.