On This Day in History
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150 free On This Day in History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free On This Day in History trivia questions with answers. Explore the most significant events that shaped our world with our engaging On This Day in History trivia quiz. From groundbreaking discoveries to pivotal moments, challenge yourself to recall the dates and details of history's most important occurrences. See how much you really know about the events that changed everything.
30 of 150 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mission first landed humans on the Moon while Michael Collins stayed in orbit?
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969; alone in orbit, Collins lost radio contact with Earth every time he passed behind the Moon.
Q 02Which test pilot first broke the sound barrier in level flight, flying the Bell X-1?
Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager did it on October 14, 1947, with two ribs cracked in a riding fall; a colleague sawed off a broom handle so he could seal the hatch.
Q 03Which senator joined Cassius in leading the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar on the Ides of March?
Brutus
Brutus had fought against Caesar in the civil war and been pardoned by him; the Latin 'Et tu, Brute?' was popularised by Shakespeare and appears in no ancient account.
Q 04Which Washington state volcano, until then the state's fifth-highest peak, erupted catastrophically on May 18, 1980?
Mount St. Helens
Mount St. Helens lost about 1,300 feet of its summit when its north face collapsed in the largest landslide in recorded history.
Q 05Which president called December 7, 1941 'a date which will live in infamy'?
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt said it to Congress the day after the attack; the House voted 388 to 1 for war, with Jeannette Rankin the lone vote against.
Q 06Which liner picked up the Titanic's survivors from their lifeboats?
Carpathia
The Carpathia steamed 58 nautical miles through the night after the distress call, then spent about four and a half hours from 4 a.m. taking over 700 survivors aboard.
Q 07In which city did Martin Luther King Jr. deliver 'I Have a Dream'?
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.: at the March on Washington, King left his prepared text after gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out, 'Tell them about the dream, Martin!'
Q 08Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 prison years on which island?
Robben Island
Robben Island: Mandela spent 13 years breaking rock in its limestone quarry, and the glare and lime dust left him with lasting eye damage.
Q 09Which president demanded 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' in a speech in West Berlin?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan said it at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987, after State Department and National Security Council aides had objected to the line.
Q 10What date was D-Day, when Allied troops landed in Normandy in World War II?
June 6, 1944
The landings on June 6, 1944, opened Operation Overlord and began the liberation of German-occupied France.
Q 11World War II officially began with Germany's invasion of which country on September 1, 1939?
Poland
Poland: the invasion is widely taken as the war's start, and the night before, SS men posing as Poles staged a fake attack on a German radio station as a pretext.
Q 12Which camp's liberation is marked each January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Auschwitz
Auschwitz: when Soviet troops arrived, they found about 7,000 prisoners left behind; the SS had already forced most of the rest on death marches.
Q 13Which bomber, named after its pilot's mother, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?
Enola Gay
Enola Gay: Colonel Paul Tibbets had his mother's name, Enola Gay Tibbets, painted on the B-29 just before the mission.
Q 21Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in which cathedral?
Notre-Dame Cathedral
Notre-Dame Cathedral: Pope Pius VII was there to consecrate him, but Napoleon took the crown and placed it on his own head.
Q 22Which currency was electronic-only for three years before its cash arrived?
Euro
The euro launched on January 1, 1999, as an 'invisible' currency; its notes and coins came in 2002 in the biggest cash changeover in history.
Q 23The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a trigger for World War I, occurred in what city?
Sarajevo
Sarajevo: Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in the Bosnian capital on June 28, 1914.
Q 14Black Tuesday's stock market crash helped tip America into which decade-long slump?
Great Depression
The Great Depression followed; on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, some 16 million shares changed hands and stock tickers ran hours behind.
Q 15On what date did the Continental Congress adopt the Declaration of Independence?
July 4, 1776
July 4, 1776: Congress adopted the Declaration's final text that day in the Pennsylvania State House, later Independence Hall; most delegates signed the engrossed copy on August 2.
Q 16Which president bought the Louisiana Territory from France?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson went ahead although the Constitution gave him no clear power to buy land; the $15 million deal nearly doubled the country's size.
Q 17Abraham Lincoln was shot at which theater?
Ford's Theatre
Ford's Theatre: John Wilkes Booth, an actor who often performed there, slipped into Lincoln's box during the comedy Our American Cousin.
Q 18Which hijacked 9/11 flight crashed in a Pennsylvania field after its passengers fought back?
United 93
United 93 came down near Shanksville after the passenger revolt; the 9/11 Commission concluded its likely target was the Capitol or the White House.
Q 19Japan's formal surrender ending World War II was signed aboard which battleship in Tokyo Bay?
USS Missouri
USS Missouri: the ceremony displayed the flag Commodore Perry had flown in 1853 when his warships forced Japan to open to trade.
Q 20Which British prime minister broadcast news of Germany's surrender to the nation on V-E Day?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill announced it on May 8, 1945, yet in an election held less than two months later, Labour's landslide swept him from office.
Q 24Bastille Day, France's national day, commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison on which date?
July 14
July 14 also marks the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, a festival celebrating the unity of the French people one year after the storming.
Q 25Which ship was Christopher Columbus's flagship on his first voyage to the Americas?
Santa María
The Santa María ran aground on Christmas Eve 1492, and Columbus used her timbers to build a fort, La Navidad, for the men he left behind.
Q 26Which beekeeper made the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay?
Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top on May 29, 1953, and the news broke on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
Q 27Which Gdańsk shipyard electrician led the Solidarity trade union?
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa was interned under martial law in 1981, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and was elected president in 1990.
Q 28Which British prime minister publicly apologised for the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Derry?
David Cameron
David Cameron told Parliament in 2010 the killings were 'unjustified and unjustifiable' after a 12-year inquiry found the victims posed no threat.
Q 29Google's name is a play on which large number?
Googol
Googol: a 1 followed by 100 zeros; a colleague checking domain names reportedly typed 'google.com' by mistake, and Larry Page liked the name.
Q 30Which federal agency did the first Earth Day help bring about?
EPA
The EPA was authorized that December; Senator Gaylord Nelson had created Earth Day, drawing some 20 million Americans, to force the environment onto the agenda.