Political Trivia
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199 free Political trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
44 free political trivia questions with answers. Politics is more than one country's presidents. This political trivia quiz roams the world: where the words 'left' and 'right' come from, why a Massachusetts governor's name became a verb, which parliament is the oldest on Earth, who was the first woman ever elected prime minister, how many members sit on the UN Security Council, and which country fines you for not voting. There are questions on the leaders (Mandela, Thatcher, Merkel, Gorbachev, Wałęsa, Bhutto, Sirleaf), the systems (Westminster, ranked-choice voting, the secret ballot, coalitions), the scandals and turning points (Watergate, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Churchill's Iron Curtain), and the assemblies (Bundestag, Knesset, Storting, Althing). A handful touch the United States, but only a handful; if you want presidents, we have a separate quiz for that. Every stem is neutral and every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the people, institutions and events, with a source attached to each question.
30 of 199 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The political terms 'left' and 'right' come from where members sat in which body?
The French National Assembly of 1789
In the French National Assembly of 1789, supporters of the king sat to the president's right and revolutionaries to his left, a seating split that named the political spectrum.
Q 02Which animal did the Boston Gazette liken Elbridge Gerry's twisted 1812 district to?
A salamander
The Boston Gazette likened a contorted district drawn to help Elbridge Gerry's party to a salamander, coining 'Gerry-mander' in 1812; Gerry lost the governorship that year anyway.
Q 03Which senator filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours 18 minutes?
Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the longest solo filibuster in Senate history at the time, reading out state election laws and the Declaration of Independence.
Q 04The Watergate scandal began with a 1972 break-in at the headquarters of which organisation?
The Democratic National Committee
Five burglars were caught inside the Democratic National Committee's offices at the Watergate complex in June 1972, and were soon linked to Nixon's re-election campaign.
Q 05Which US president is the only one to have resigned from office?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974 rather than face near-certain impeachment over the Watergate cover-up; no other US president has resigned.
Q 06How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison before his release in 1990?
27
He was held first on Robben Island, and four years after his release he became South Africa's first black head of state.
Q 07Which South African president released Mandela and later negotiated the end of apartheid with him?
F. W. de Klerk
F. W. de Klerk freed Mandela in February 1990 and negotiated the end of apartheid with him; the two shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize before Mandela won the 1994 election.
Q 08Before entering politics, Margaret Thatcher trained and briefly worked as what?
A research chemist
Margaret Thatcher read chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked as a research chemist at BX Plastics and J. Lyons before qualifying as a barrister in 1954.
Q 09Which 1978-79 wave of British strikes helped bring Thatcher to power in 1979?
The Winter of Discontent
The Winter of Discontent, a wave of public-sector strikes in 1978-79, undermined Callaghan's Labour government; the Conservatives' 'Labour Isn't Working' campaign won a majority in May 1979.
Q 10Angela Merkel holds a doctorate in which field?
Quantum chemistry
Angela Merkel earned a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist in East Berlin before entering politics in 1990; she became Germany's first female chancellor in 2005.
Q 11Who became the world's first woman elected prime minister, in 1960?
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister of Ceylon in July 1960, a year after her husband's assassination, and went on to lead the country three separate times.
Q 12Which country elected the world's first female president in a democratic vote, in 1980?
Iceland
Iceland elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, a former theatre director, as president in June 1980; she served four terms, until 1996.
Q 13Established in 930, which is the oldest legislature in the world?
Iceland's Althing
Iceland's Althing was founded at Thingvellir in 930 and met there until 1798; abolished in 1800, it was restored in Reykjavik in 1845 and is the oldest surviving parliament.
Q 21The 'Australian ballot' refers to what democratic innovation first used in Tasmania in 1856?
Voting in secret
The 'Australian ballot' is voting in secret on a government-printed paper, first legislated in Tasmania in 1856; before it, American parties handed voters pre-filled tickets, and Massachusetts adopted the secret ballot in 1888.
Q 22Which self-governing colony became the first to grant women the national vote, in 1893?
New Zealand
New Zealand granted women the vote on 19 September 1893 after Kate Sheppard's petition of nearly 32,000 signatures, about a quarter of the colony's adult European women.
Q 23Emmeline Pankhurst founded which militant British suffrage organisation in 1903?
Q 14How many members sit on the United Nations Security Council?
Fifteen
The Security Council has fifteen members: five permanent veto-holders (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) and ten elected for two-year terms, a size fixed by a 1965 expansion from eleven.
Q 15Which country introduced compulsory voting for national elections in 1924?
Australia
Turnout had ranged from 47 to 78 percent before; Belgium has the oldest system still in force.
Q 16How many single-member constituencies elect the UK House of Commons?
650
The Commons has 650 single-member constituencies, each returning one MP by first-past-the-post; the 2023 boundary review redrew seats but kept the total at 650.
Q 17Who is regarded as the first British prime minister, taking office in 1721?
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury from 1721 to 1742, is counted as the first prime minister and remains the longest-serving at nearly 21 years.
Q 18Which British prime minister served the shortest tenure, seven weeks?
Liz Truss
Liz Truss resigned in October 2022 after 49 days, the shortest premiership on record; George Canning's 119 days in 1827, ended by his death, had been the previous low.
Q 19In 1997 Tony Blair moved Prime Minister's Questions to a single weekly session on which day?
Wednesday
Tony Blair merged the two 15-minute sessions into one 30-minute Wednesday slot in 1997; the fixed slot dates from a 1961 experiment under Harold Macmillan, originally on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Q 20Instant-runoff (ranked-choice) voting is used to elect the lower house of which country's parliament?
Australia
Voters rank candidates and the last-placed is eliminated round by round; Papua New Guinea and Ireland's presidency use it too.
The Women's Social and Political Union
Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union in Manchester in 1903 under the motto 'deeds, not words'; British women over 30 won the vote in 1918.
Q 24In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?
1989
The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989 after spokesman Günter Schabowski's botched press conference sent crowds to the checkpoints and overwhelmed guards opened the gates.
Q 25In which year did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?
1961
East Germany began building the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961; about 3.5 million East Germans, roughly a fifth of the population, had fled west before it went up.
Q 26Winston Churchill delivered his 'iron curtain' speech in 1946 in which US state?
Missouri
Churchill spoke at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, with President Truman present, describing an iron curtain 'from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic'.
Q 27Where did John F. Kennedy declare 'Ich bin ein Berliner' in June 1963?
On the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg
Kennedy spoke from the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg, West Berlin's city hall, on 26 June 1963; East German authorities hung red banners across the Brandenburg Gate to block his view.
Q 28Which country did Fidel Castro lead from 1959 until 2011?
Cuba
Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, formally handed the presidency to his brother Raúl in 2008 and gave up leadership of the Communist Party in 2011.
Q 29Robert Mugabe led which country from 1980 until his removal in 2017?
Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe was Zimbabwe's first prime minister from 1980 and its president from 1987 until a military takeover forced him out in November 2017.
Q 30Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state, led which country?
Liberia
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018; the Harvard-trained economist had fled after Samuel Doe's 1980 coup and worked for Citibank before returning.