This Omaha trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and covers the whole story of Nebraska's biggest city: the Lone Tree Ferry and the 1854 founding, the Union Pacific building west, the stockyards that were once the largest on earth, the 1898 world's fair, and the Fortune 500 firms and Oracle who call it home. There are questions on the Henry Doorly Zoo's record-breaking dome, the College World Series, Boys Town, Offutt Air Force Base and the D-Day beach that borrowed the city's name. It also tests you on famous Omahans (Malcolm X, Gerald Ford, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, Andy Roddick, Terence Crawford), Omaha inventions like the Reuben, the TV dinner and Top 40 radio, and local oddities such as what Ak-Sar-Ben really means. Questions run from easy to expert, so it works for a bar quiz, a classroom, or a family that just moved to town. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each explanation adds one more Omaha fact.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Omaha sits on the bank of which river?
Missouri
The city lies about 10 miles north of where the Platte flows into it, and much of Omaha is built in the river valley.
Q 02Omaha is the county seat of which Nebraska county?
Douglas
The eight-county metro area spills across the river into Iowa and holds roughly a million people.
Q 03In the Omaha language, the city's name means what?
Upstream People
The Omaha and Ponca tribes speak closely related Siouan languages of the Dhegihan branch.
Q 04Omaha's pioneer period began in 1854 when speculators crossed the river from which neighbouring town?
Council Bluffs, Iowa
The Lone Tree Ferry that carried them over earned Omaha its nickname, the 'Gateway to the West'.
Q 05Omaha was informally founded in 1854 at a picnic on Capital Hill, now the site of what?
Central High School
The school began in 1859 inside the Nebraska Territory capitol building itself, and its student paper is the oldest continuously published newspaper west of the Mississippi.
Q 06Omaha was Nebraska's territorial capital, but the state capital moved in 1867 to which city?
Lincoln
The new capital, 53 miles to the southwest, was originally called Lancaster and renamed after the recently assassinated president.
Q 07In 1804 which expedition passed the riverbanks where Omaha would later be built?
Lewis and Clark
Its leaders met Oto and Missouria chiefs at the 'Council Bluff' about 20 miles north of the present city.
Q 08Which railroad built west from Omaha from 1866 on the first transcontinental line?
Union Pacific
The company is still headquartered in the city and remains one of Omaha's four Fortune 500 firms.
Q 09Omaha hosted a world's fair in 1898 under what name?
Trans-Mississippi Exposition
More than 2.6 million visitors saw 4,062 exhibits, and President McKinley spoke on 'President's Day' that October.
Q 10On 31 August 1898 Omaha's world's fair declared a special day in honour of which showman?
Buffalo Bill Cody
An 'Indian Congress' of tribes from across the West was held at the same time as the fair.
Q 11By the 1950s, what share of Omaha's workforce was in meatpacking and processing?
Half
Omaha passed Chicago in meat processing in the late 1950s, only to lose 10,000 jobs as the industry restructured; only the Livestock Exchange Building survives.
Q 12Which of these Fortune 500 companies is NOT headquartered in Omaha?
ConAgra Brands
ConAgra levelled the Jobbers Canyon historic district for a riverfront campus in the 1980s but later moved its headquarters to Chicago; Berkshire Hathaway is the fourth Omaha Fortune 500 firm.
Q 13Warren Buffett's nickname refers to his home city. What is it?
The Oracle of Omaha
Q 21Which legendary dancer was born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha in 1899?
Fred Astaire
The AFI ranked him the fifth-greatest male star of classic Hollywood; his career spanned 76 years.
Q 22Which two-time Oscar-winning actor was born in Omaha on 3 April 1924?
Marlon Brando
Henry Fonda was also a Nebraskan, but from Grand Island; Brando was the only son of Marlon Sr. and Dorothy Pennebaker.
Q 23Omaha native Alexander Payne set which of his films in the city?
Election
Citizen Ruth and About Schmidt were also shot in Omaha; Payne has won two Adapted Screenplay Oscars, for Sideways and The Descendants.
Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting draws tens of thousands to the city and is dubbed the 'Woodstock of Capitalism'.
Q 14Since 1950 Omaha has hosted which annual NCAA championship?
College World Series
The tournament played at Rosenblatt Stadium through 2010 before moving downtown to what is now Charles Schwab Field.
Q 15Before Omaha, the college baseball championship was held in Kalamazoo and then in which city in 1949?
Wichita, Kansas
The 1947 and 1948 editions were played at Hyames Field in Kalamazoo before the one-year stop in Kansas.
Q 16Which Omaha ballpark hosted the college baseball championship from 1950 through 2010?
Rosenblatt
Named for a former mayor, it was imploded in 2012 and its site is now owned by the neighbouring zoo.
Q 17Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo grew out of a public zoo opened in 1894 under what name?
Riverview Park Zoo
The zoo took its current name in 1963 after a $750,000 gift from Margaret Hitchcock Doorly in memory of her husband, a newspaper publisher.
Q 18The Henry Doorly Zoo's 13-storey desert exhibit, opened in 2002, holds what world record?
Largest glazed geodesic dome
The 13-storey dome opened in April 2002; beneath it sits Kingdoms of the Night, the world's largest nocturnal exhibit.
Q 19Which civil rights leader was born at University Hospital in Omaha on 19 May 1925?
Malcolm X
His family left for Milwaukee the following year after threats from the Ku Klux Klan; the house on Pinkney Street was torn down in 1965.
Q 20Which US president was born in Omaha in 1913 under the name Leslie Lynch King Jr.?
Gerald Ford
He was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and took his stepfather's name.
Q 24Which tennis player, a 2003 US Open champion, was born in Omaha in 1982?
Andy Roddick
He is married to the model and actress Brooklyn Decker.
Q 25Which three-weight undisputed boxing champion was born and raised in Omaha?
Terence Crawford
'Bud' Crawford was the first male boxer of the four-belt era to be undisputed in two and then three divisions.
Q 26The author of 'The Notebook' and 'A Walk to Remember' was born in Omaha in 1965. Who is he?
Nicholas Sparks
Eleven of his novels have been adapted into feature films.
Q 27Actress Gabrielle Union, star of 'Bring It On', was born in which city?
Omaha
Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.
Q 28Which indie rock band was founded in Omaha by singer-songwriter Conor Oberst?
Bright Eyes
Its albums came out on Saddle Creek Records, a Nebraska label co-founded by Oberst's brother; 311 and Mannheim Steamroller are also from Omaha.
Q 29Which corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss sandwich was reputedly invented at a poker game at Omaha's Blackstone Hotel?
Reuben
Grocer Reuben Kulakofsky gets the credit locally; the city marks Reuben Sandwich Day on 14 March, though a New York deli also claims it.
Q 30The Top 40 radio format was invented in the early 1950s at which Omaha station?
KOWH
Todd Storz built his weekly playlist from how often records were played on jukeboxes, then bought more stations to spread the format.