Hispanic Heritage Month
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by testing your knowledge with our free 174-question trivia quiz with answers. From iconic historical figures to cultural traditions and achievements, this quiz covers the rich and diverse heritage of Hispanic and Latino communities. Challenge yourself and learn something new about the vibrant cultures that have shaped our world.
30 of 174 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01National Hispanic Heritage Month runs between which dates each year?
September 15th to October 15th
September 15th to October 15th looks like an odd window, but it opens on the date several Latin American nations mark as their independence day, with more national days following within the week.
Q 02Which U.S. President first established Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson signed the law in September 1968 and proclaimed the first week the same day; because it asked for a proclamation every year, each president after him has issued one.
Q 03Which countries' shared independence anniversary opens Hispanic Heritage Month?
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua were governed together as Spain's Captaincy General of Guatemala, so all five date their independence to one act signed on 15 September 1821.
Q 04Green Beret Roy Benavidez received the Medal of Honor for a rescue mission in which war?
Vietnam War
Vietnam War, 1968: Roy Benavidez jumped from a hovering helicopter and ran through enemy fire to a trapped patrol; wounded again and again, he kept carrying men to the aircraft and saved at least eight.
Q 05Which president signed the law to expand Hispanic Heritage Week into a month-long celebration?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan signed the bill in August 1988, yet a month later he proclaimed one last Hispanic Heritage Week.
Q 06Which company confirmed in February 2025 that its calendar app had stopped showing Hispanic Heritage Month by default?
Google said that keeping hundreds of cultural moments current by hand around the world 'wasn't scalable or sustainable', so since mid-2024 its Calendar has listed only public holidays and national observances.
Q 07Which South American country celebrates its Independence Day on September 18?
Chile
Chile marks 18 September because a governing junta took charge in Santiago on that day in 1810; the formal declaration of independence did not follow until 1818.
Q 08The word 'Hispanic' comes from Hispania, the Romans' name for which region?
The Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula was Hispania to the Romans, a name that took in today's Portugal as well as Spain.
Q 09Which Mexican painter, born in 1907, is famous for self-portraits filled with the nature and artifacts of Mexico?
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was headed for medical school until a bus crash at 18 left her bedridden; she taught herself to paint during the long recovery.
Q 10Which Spanish surrealist, born in Figueres, Catalonia, painted the melting clocks of The Persistence of Memory?
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí said the limp watches owed nothing to Einstein's relativity, as critics assumed: his model was a soft Camembert cheese. The canvas has hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art since 1934.
Q 11Which Spanish word for a cattle herder is the likely source of the cowboy term 'buckaroo'?
Vaquero
Vaquero, built on vaca ('cow'), was the name of the mounted herders that settlers met on Texas ranches around 1820; the newcomers borrowed their lariat, saddle and spurs along with the word.
Q 12Congress voted in 2020 to create a National Museum of the American Latino as part of which organization?
The Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution gained two museums from that single act, the other devoted to American women's history; as of 2024 the Latino museum had a director and exhibitions but no building of its own.
Q 13Which Nobel laureate's 1967 novel 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' defined magical realism?
Q 21Which poet and former schoolteacher became Latin America's first Nobel laureate in literature, in 1945?
Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral began teaching in village schools at 15; by 1922 her name had travelled far enough that Mexico's government invited her to help reform its schools.
Q 22Which parish priest set off Mexico's war of independence with the 'Cry of Dolores' in 1810?
Miguel Hidalgo
Miguel Hidalgo called his parishioners in the town of Dolores to arms and was captured and executed within a year; each year the president still repeats his cry from the balcony of the National Palace.
Q 23Which South American country falls outside the U.S. government's definition of Hispanic?
Brazil
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez wrote every day for 18 months while his wife, Mercedes, kept the household going on credit, running up a long tab with the butcher.
Q 14What is the stated purpose of the U.S. observance that runs from mid-September to mid-October each year?
Recognizing Hispanic influence on U.S. culture and history
National Hispanic Heritage Month exists for recognizing Hispanic influence on U.S. culture and history; the 1968 law asked the public, especially the educational community, to mark the week with ceremonies and activities.
Q 15Which poet wrote Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair before winning the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature?
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was a senator when his attacks on the president brought an order for his arrest; he went into hiding, then escaped over the Andes on horseback with the manuscript of Canto General.
Q 16Hispanic Heritage Month honours roots in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean — and where else?
Central America and South America
The official definition covers Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America and South America; the Census Bureau adds that Hispanic or Latino people can be of any race.
Q 17In which country was Fernando Botero, painter and sculptor of famously rotund figures, born?
Colombia
Colombia's Medellín was his home city; when a bomb destroyed his bronze bird in a plaza there in 1995, killing more than 20 people, he had the wreck left in place and gave an intact twin to stand beside it.
Q 18What nickname did the 65th Infantry, a regiment raised in Puerto Rico and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014, earn?
The Borinqueneers
The Borinqueneers took the name from Borinquen, the Taíno word for their island, on the voyage to the Korean War, where they made the U.S. Army's last recorded battalion-sized bayonet assault.
Q 19Which Spanish artist is considered one of the pioneers of Cubism, a revolutionary art movement?
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque built the style together, and its name is usually traced to a jab: in 1908 the critic Louis Vauxcelles wrote that Braque reduced everything 'to cubes'.
Q 20For which Mexican holiday do families build home altars decked with marigolds and sugar skulls?
Día de los Muertos
Día de los Muertos altars, called ofrendas, hold the favourite food and drink of the dead, and the marigolds' colour and scent are believed to guide their spirits home on 1 and 2 November.
Brazil was colonised by Portugal and speaks Portuguese, while the federal definition of Hispanic covers only people of 'Spanish culture or origin', so Brazilians are officially left out.
Q 24Nobel physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son Walter proposed in 1980 that what had wiped out the dinosaurs?
An asteroid impact
An asteroid impact was their reading of a thin layer of clay, rich in the rare metal iridium, laid down just as the dinosaurs vanish from the rocks; the crater itself was found only later, on the Yucatán coast.
Q 25Which Latin music style took shape among musicians of Caribbean heritage in New York City?
Salsa
Salsa grew in New York out of Afro-Cuban dance music, and the name itself, Spanish for 'sauce', was attached only later, as a label for a sound that already existed.
Q 26Which Spanish-born scientist shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on RNA and DNA synthesis?
Severo Ochoa
Severo Ochoa, born in Luarca, Asturias, in 1905, shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg for discovering how cells synthesize RNA and DNA.
Q 27Which taco filling of spit-roasted pork grew out of the shawarma that Lebanese immigrants brought to Mexico?
Al pastor
Al pastor means 'shepherd style'; the first versions used lamb, until cooks swapped in marinated pork, kept the upright spit, known as a trompo, and added pineapple.
Q 28Which Guatemalan Nobel laureate wrote 'El Señor Presidente'?
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias, a Guatemalan novelist and diplomat, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967 and is known for his novel 'El Señor Presidente', which critiques dictatorship.
Q 29Which U.S. President issued the first proclamation for National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1989?
George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush signed Proclamation 6021 on 14 September 1989, the first to designate the full 31 days from September 15 to October 15 as National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Q 30Which traditional Spanish dance form is known for intricate footwork, hand clapping and guitar music?
Flamenco
Flamenco, long associated with the Roma, or Gitanos, of Andalusia, was song above all; the guitar became its usual partner only after the mid-1800s, and some forms are still sung unaccompanied.