Houston Trivia
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48 free Houston trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Houston trivia questions with answers. Houston trivia for locals, transplants and anyone who has ever sat in traffic on the 610 Loop. This quiz covers the whole city: the Allen brothers' 1836 land deal, the general the city is named for, why the Ship Channel turned an inland town into a global port, the 1961 decision that made it Space City, and the misquote that made 'Houston' the first word of every crisis. It also covers the Astrodome and AstroTurf, the world's largest medical center, the Rodeo and its trail rides, Hurricane Harvey's record rain, the Astros, Rockets, Oilers and Texans, DJ Screw and Beyonce, kolaches and Viet-Cajun crawfish, and the museums, towers and quirks that make Houston Houston. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Houston was founded in 1836 by which pair of land-investor siblings?
The Allens
The Allens. Augustus and John Kirby Allen advertised their 'Town of Houston' in August 1836, named it for the hero of the hour, and lobbied the Republic's congress into making it the capital.
Q 02Sam Houston won Texas independence at which battle, fought east of the city later named for him?
San Jacinto
San Jacinto. Houston's men charged during the Mexican army's afternoon siesta and won in about 18 minutes, shouting 'Remember the Alamo!', and they captured Santa Anna the next day.
Q 03Sam Houston was removed as governor of Texas in 1861 for refusing to do what?
Swear loyalty to the Confederacy
Swear loyalty to the Confederacy. He had fought secession and would not take the oath, so his office was declared vacant; he is still the only person elected governor of two states.
Q 04As of the 2020 census, Houston ranked fourth among US cities, behind New York, Los Angeles and which other?
Chicago
Chicago. Houston climbed the table partly by swallowing its suburbs: one round of annexation in 1948-49 more than doubled the city's size.
Q 05Which nickname did Houston earn from the Rockets' NBA titles of 1994 and 1995?
Clutch City
Clutch City. Local papers had sneered 'Choke City' when the team let playoff games slip in 1994, so when the Rockets fought back to win it all, the insult was turned inside out.
Q 06Houston is famous as the largest US city without what?
Formal zoning regulations
Formal zoning regulations. Voters threw them out in referendums in 1948, 1962 and 1993, and private deed restrictions written by subdivision developers do much of the job instead.
Q 07NASA's Houston home, opened in 1963 as the Manned Spacecraft Center, was renamed in 1973 for which president?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson. As a senator the Texan had steered the 1958 act that created NASA, and he chaired Kennedy's space council; the centre took his name weeks after his death.
Q 08The line misquoted as 'Houston, we have a problem' was radioed from which Apollo mission?
Apollo 13
Apollo 13. After an explosion on the way to the Moon, Jack Swigert actually said, 'Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here'; the 1995 film shifted it into the present tense.
Q 09Which rocket on show at NASA's Houston centre is made entirely of flight-certified hardware?
A Saturn V
A Saturn V. Its stages were built to fly on Moon missions that were later cancelled, so of the three Saturn Vs still on display, Houston's alone has no mock-up or test parts.
Q 10In July 1969 Neil Armstrong radioed 'Houston, Tranquility Base here', followed by which four words?
The Eagle has landed
The Eagle has landed. Mission Control's Charlie Duke, tongue-tied with relief, answered: 'You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.'
Q 11What killed the grass in Houston's Astrodome within months of its 1965 opening?
Painted roof panels
Painted roof panels. Glare through the clear roof was blinding outfielders, so the panes were painted, the grass died for want of sun, and the plastic replacement became known as AstroTurf.
Q 12Which famous 1973 tennis match, won by Billie Jean King over Bobby Riggs, was played in the Astrodome?
The Battle of the Sexes
The Battle of the Sexes. Riggs, 55, had already beaten the champion Margaret Court four months earlier, but King, 29, swept him in three straight sets.
Q 13Which singer drew a record crowd of more than 60,000 to the Astrodome at the 1995 Houston Rodeo?
Selena
Q 21In 2005 Houston sheltered more than 150,000 New Orleans evacuees fleeing which storm?
Katrina
Katrina. A month later Rita sent about 2.5 million Houston-area residents fleeing in their turn, and most of that storm's deaths in Texas came in the jammed evacuation, not the wind.
Q 22A folk-art landmark in Houston is a house that its owner covered in an estimated 50,000 of what?
Beer cans
Beer cans. John Milkovisch, a retired railroad upholsterer, began in 1968, and the can garlands he hung from the eaves sing in the wind and cut the family's energy bills.
Q 23On the Friday before the Rodeo, Houstonians wear western clothing for a day known as what?
Go Texan Day
Selena. The sold-out show was the Tejano star's third Rodeo date in a row and her last televised concert: weeks later, aged 23, she was shot dead by the president of her fan club.
Q 14Which Houston-born tycoon inherited a fortune built on an oil-drilling bit his father patented?
Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes. His father leased the bits to drillers instead of selling them, and the Hughes Tool Company's profits bankrolled the son's films, record-setting planes and airline.
Q 15Which Houston team won the first four WNBA championships, from 1997 to 2000?
The Comets
The Comets. Led by Cynthia Cooper, the league's first MVP, they were the WNBA's first dynasty, yet the franchise folded in 2008 when no new owner could be found.
Q 16Which 1900 disaster in Galveston shifted Texas's main port to Houston?
A hurricane
A hurricane. It killed at least 6,000 people, and although Galveston answered with a 17-foot seawall and jacked up more than 2,000 buildings to raise the island, investors had already turned to Houston.
Q 17Which two companies were formed to develop the 1901 Spindletop gusher near Beaumont?
Gulf Oil and Texaco
Gulf Oil and Texaco. The gusher ran wild for nine days at an estimated 100,000 barrels a day, and the oil firms it spawned soon put their offices and refineries in Houston.
Q 18Which Houston energy company, which claimed $100 billion in revenue, collapsed in a 2001 accounting scandal?
Enron
Enron. It had bought 30 years of naming rights to the Astros' new ballpark, and within months of the bankruptcy Enron Field was plain Astros Field.
Q 19The Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical complex, is home to which renowned cancer hospital?
MD Anderson
MD Anderson. It is named for Monroe Dunaway Anderson, a Houston cotton trader whose foundation conceived the whole medical center and put up money for the cancer hospital.
Q 20Which 2017 storm set a US rainfall record of about 60 inches over Texas?
Harvey
Harvey. It stalled near the coast for days and dropped 60.58 inches of rain on Nederland, east of Houston, and the floods that followed forced thousands of water rescues.
Go Texan Day. It salutes the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, first held in 1932 as the Fat Stock Show, as trail riders from around Texas converge on the city on horseback.
Q 24The Houston Astros entered the National League in 1962 under what original name?
The Colt .45s
The Colt .45s. Fans picked the name in a contest, for the gun that won the West, but it lasted three seasons: with the move into the Astrodome the club became the Astros, for the city's part in the space program.
Q 25Whom did the Astros beat in 2017 to win their first World Series?
Dodgers
The Dodgers. The title was later tainted: that season the Astros had used a centre-field camera and bangs on a trash can to tell batters which pitch was coming.
Q 26The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971 from which city?
San Diego
San Diego. The Rockets name was chosen there in a fan contest, four years before the team moved, so its perfect fit with the home of Mission Control is pure luck.
Q 27Hakeem Olajuwon and 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson formed which nicknamed Rockets front court of the mid-1980s?
The Twin Towers
The Twin Towers. In 1986 they upset the defending champion Lakers, Sampson sinking an awkward turnaround shot to win the series, before losing the Finals to Boston.
Q 28Bud Adams moved the Houston Oilers to which state after the 1996 season?
Tennessee
Tennessee. The team kept the Oilers name for two more seasons, the first of them in Memphis while its Nashville stadium was built, before becoming the Titans in 1999.
Q 29Which team did the Houston Texans upset in their first regular-season game, in 2002?
Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys. No expansion team had won its opening game since 1961, yet the upset of the state's established power was one of only four wins the Texans managed all season.
Q 30Houston's Rice Institute opened in 1912 only after what happened to its founder, William Marsh Rice?
He was murdered
He was murdered. His valet killed him in 1900 in a plot with a lawyer who had forged documents to seize the fortune; the scheme unravelled, and the estate went to found the institute.