Red Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
89 free Red trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Red is the colour of stop signs, warning flags, racing cars and romance, and almost every corner of life has a red story hiding in it. A Cold War hotline that never had a telephone, a sweet that vanished from the packet for eleven years, a gas lamp that exploded outside a famous building, and a matador's cloth whose colour the bull cannot even see. These 89 questions roam across science, history, sport, music, film and language: why cooked shellfish and ripe tomatoes turn red, which team abroad shares a famous nickname, where 'red tape' and 'paint the town red' came from, which stars are red and invisible, and the novels, plays and songs with red in the title. Most questions are pitched for a pub table or a family round, with a handful of deep cuts for people who collect odd facts. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a quiz night, a classroom or a red-themed party.
30 of 89 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which background colour did American stop signs carry until 1954, before the switch that drivers know today?
Yellow
Yellow was the standard because the red pigments of the day faded outdoors; once durable red finishes arrived, the 1954 rulebook made the red octagon the only standard.
Q 02The Moscow–Washington hotline is pictured as a red telephone, but which machines actually carried its first messages in 1963?
Teleprinters
Teleprinters carried the first hotline message in August 1963, a test sent from Washington: 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back 1234567890.' Fax machines and later computers replaced them.
Q 03Which colour did M&M's add in 1976 to replace red, pulled over a scare about a dye the sweets never used?
Orange
Orange stood in for red after the Red Dye No. 2 cancer scare and then never left: when red M&M's returned in 1987, orange kept its place in the bag.
Q 04Which seaside town did motorists drive to from London in 1896 to celebrate freedom from Britain's 'Red Flag Act' speed limits?
Brighton
Brighton was the goal of the 1896 'Emancipation Run', held as a new law lifted the limit from 4 to 14 mph. The 1865 Act had put a man with a red flag 60 yards ahead of each road locomotive, though the flag itself went in 1878.
Q 05Why is a matador's muleta traditionally dyed a colour that bulls, being dichromatic, cannot actually make out?
To hide bloodstains
To hide bloodstains is the practical reason the muleta stays red: bulls charge the cloth's movement, and go for the matador's other cape, the larger capote, just as readily.
Q 06'Redshirt', for a character introduced only to be killed, comes from doomed security crew on which 1960s TV series?
Star Trek
Star Trek's doomed crewmen inspired John Scalzi's satire Redshirts, in which expendable ensigns on another starship work out why they keep dying; it won the 2013 Hugo Award.
Q 07Which London building got the world's first traffic signal in 1868, a gas lamp showing red or green that soon exploded?
Parliament
Parliament's signal was a railway engineer's idea and needed a policeman to work it; within a month a gas leak caused an explosion that badly burned his face, and the signal was gone within the year.
Q 08Which national football team has used Manchester United's nickname since 1906, thanks to the colour of its jerseys?
Belgium
Belgium became the Red Devils in 1906, when a sports journalist coined the name after two 5–0 wins; Manchester United only borrowed theirs from Salford's rugby team in the 1960s.
Q 09Why does a lobster's shell turn red when it is cooked?
Its hidden colour is unmasked
Its hidden colour is unmasked: heat breaks down the shell protein that masks astaxanthin, a red pigment. The same pigment makes salmon flesh pink.
Q 10Which pigment makes tomatoes red and also colours watermelon and pink grapefruit?
Lycopene
Lycopene is one nutrient that cooking helps: the body takes up far more of it from tomato paste than from fresh tomatoes.
Q 11Which muscle protein carries the pigments that colour red meat?
Myoglobin
Myoglobin stores oxygen inside muscle, which is why whales and seals pack so much of it that they can hold their breath through long dives.
Q 12What coats the striking strip of a safety match box, deliberately kept apart from the match head?
Red phosphorus
Red phosphorus on the box, not the match, was Gustaf Pasch's 1844 safety idea: it let match heads drop white phosphorus, which poisoned factory workers with 'phossy jaw'.
Q 13The juice of which vegetable works as a homemade pH indicator that turns pink with vinegar?
Red cabbage
Red cabbage juice changes colour with acidity, which is why cooks add vinegar or acidic fruit to the pot to keep the leaves red.
Q 21After the Wars of the Roses, which royal dynasty joined Lancaster's red rose and York's white in a single badge?
Tudor
Tudor king Henry VII dusted off the red rose to stand for Lancaster and merged it with York's white when he married Elizabeth of York; nobody at the time called the conflict the Wars of the Roses.
Q 22Which London Underground line, printed in red on the Tube map, is the network's longest at 46 miles?
Central
The Central line opened in 1900 charging two old pence for any journey, and the Daily Mail promptly nicknamed it the 'Twopenny Tube'.
Q 23In motor racing, what does a solid red flag tell the drivers?
The session is halted
Q 14Which kind of star is the Milky Way's most common, yet not one is visible to the naked eye?
Red dwarf
Red dwarfs burn their fuel so slowly that they should shine for trillions of years, far longer than the universe has existed, so none has yet died of old age.
Q 15Ruby is the traditional birthstone for which month?
July
July's ruby is the same mineral as sapphire: both are corundum, and it is only a trace of chromium that turns the stone red.
Q 16Before 'red state' meant Republican, whose states lit up red on NBC's 1976 map?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter's states glowed red and Gerald Ford's blue, because NBC borrowed the colours of Britain's Labour and Conservative parties. Red and blue only became fixed party labels during the long 2000 Bush–Gore count.
Q 17At the 1991 Tony Awards, Jeremy Irons was among the first to wear a red ribbon for people living with what?
HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS awareness was the cause: New York artists borrowed the idea from the ribbons tied for Gulf War troops, and left the red ribbon uncopyrighted so that anyone could wear it.
Q 18The Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of which dance?
Can-can
The can-can made stars of Moulin Rouge dancers such as La Goulue, whom Toulouse-Lautrec put on the cabaret's posters; its name means 'Red Mill', after the windmill on the roof.
Q 19Red Nose Day raises money for which British charity, founded by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry in 1985?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief was the comedy world's answer to the Ethiopian famine, and it launched live on BBC television on Christmas Day 1985 from a refugee camp in Sudan.
Q 20Which singer wrote 'The Lady in Red' with his wife Diane in mind?
Chris de Burgh
Chris de Burgh's signature hit topped the UK chart, yet in a 2001 poll of over 50,000 Observer readers and Channel 4 viewers it was voted the fourth most hated single.
The session is halted when a red flag flies, usually after a serious crash or in dangerous weather; in a Formula One race the cars must crawl back to the pit lane and queue at its exit.
Q 24Which skydiver rode a helium balloon 39 km above New Mexico in 2012 and then jumped in a pressure suit?
Felix Baumgartner
Felix Baumgartner broke the 1960 record of Joseph Kittinger, who at 84 was the voice guiding him by radio that day, then lost the height record two years later to Google executive Alan Eustace.
Q 25Stephen King wrote 'Red' as a white Irishman, but which actor won the role in The Shawshank Redemption?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman was cast at a producer's suggestion despite the book's description, and the film winks at the change: asked why he is called Red, he says, 'Maybe it's because I'm Irish.'
Q 26Which author and illustrator created Clifford the Big Red Dog in 1963?
Norman Bridwell
Norman Bridwell wanted to call his giant dog Tiny until his wife talked him out of it, and he named Clifford's owner, Emily Elizabeth, after their daughter.
Q 27Which Austrian entrepreneur turned the Thai tonic Krating Daeng into Red Bull after claiming it cured his jet lag?
Dietrich Mateschitz
Dietrich Mateschitz partnered with Krating Daeng's creator Chaleo Yoovidhya and reformulated the drink for Western tastes, carbonating it for the first time.
Q 28Which 1973 Triple Crown winner, who set the time record in all three races, was nicknamed 'Big Red'?
Secretariat
Secretariat had to wait 39 years for one of those records: a faulty track clock mistimed his Preakness, and only a 2012 review of the race film gave him the 1:53 mark.
Q 29Which coach lit a victory cigar on the Boston Celtics bench whenever he judged a game already won?
Red Auerbach
Red Auerbach's early victory cigars taunted opponents, but Boston indulged him: restaurant menus there read 'No cigar or pipe smoking, except for Red Auerbach.'
Q 30Which bird of prey, reintroduced to England's Chilterns from 1989, has taken to snatching sandwiches from people in local parks?
Red kite
Red kites had been persecuted almost out of Britain, but the Chilterns releases worked so well that in 2023 a local council put up posters asking people not to feed them.