Richard Nixon Trivia
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59 free Richard Nixon trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Richard Nixon trivia quiz covers the whole arc: a Quaker boyhood on a failed lemon ranch, a Duke law degree, Navy poker winnings, the Alger Hiss case, the Checkers speech, eight years as Eisenhower's vice president, the loss to Kennedy, the 'last press conference', the comeback of 1968, China and détente, the EPA and the Moon landing, and then Watergate, the tapes, the Saturday Night Massacre and the helicopter on the South Lawn. The easy questions are the ones everyone knows: which number president, what he did that no other president has done, who pardoned him. The medium ones cover his early career, the 1960 debates, his running mates, his foreign policy and the scandal's key players. The hard ones dig into the Orthogonian Society, the Herter Committee, Operation Menu, the Philadelphia Plan, the 18-and-a-half-minute gap and the David Frost interviews. It works for a US history class, a Cold War pub round or a Watergate anniversary night. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Richard Nixon became the 37th president in January 1969, succeeding which man?
Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson had announced in March 1968 that he would not seek re-election, so Nixon beat Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, eight years after losing the White House to Kennedy.
Q 02Nixon is the only US president to have done what?
Resigned from office
Resigned from office, not impeached: the House Judiciary Committee had approved three articles of impeachment in late July 1974, but Nixon quit on August 9 before the full House could vote on them.
Q 03Nixon was born into a poor family belonging to which religious group?
Quakers
Quakers through his mother, Hannah, whose faith his Methodist-born father adopted. As a birthright Quaker Nixon could have claimed exemption from wartime service, yet he volunteered for the Navy.
Q 04Nixon was born in a Southern California house his father built on what kind of farm?
A lemon ranch
A lemon ranch, and a failing one: it went under in 1922 and the family moved to nearby Whittier, where his father opened a grocery store and gas station that put the whole family to work.
Q 05Richard Nixon, like three of his four brothers, was named after which British king?
Richard the Lionheart
Richard the Lionheart gave the future president his name, and Harold, Arthur and Edward were royal namesakes too; the odd one out was Donald, whose first name, Francis, came from their father.
Q 06Snubbed by Whittier College's Franklins club, Nixon helped found a rival called what?
The Orthogonian Society
The Orthogonian Society was his answer to the Franklins, whose well-to-do members dominated campus life; Nixon, a grocer's son who worked in the family store, had not been asked to join.
Q 07Which university's scholarship did Nixon pass up in 1930 because his family needed him at home?
Harvard
Harvard was out of reach: his older brother had tuberculosis and Depression money was short, so Nixon stayed in his hometown, helping run the family store while he studied at the local college.
Q 08From which university's law school did Nixon graduate in 1937?
Duke
Duke ranked him third in its law class of 1937, yet the prestigious East Coast firms he applied to all turned him down, and he went home to a small-town California practice.
Q 09Which federal agency did Nixon apply to join straight out of law school in 1937, without success?
The FBI
The FBI never took him on. Decades later a tape of President Nixon telling aides to have the CIA block an FBI investigation became the key evidence against him in Watergate.
Q 10As a young California lawyer, Nixon was president of a company that went bankrupt trying to sell what?
Frozen orange juice
Frozen orange juice sank Citra-Frost: it froze whole juice rather than concentrate, and Nixon spent evenings after his law work cutting and squeezing oranges himself before it went bankrupt.
Q 11How did Nixon meet his future wife Pat Ryan in 1938?
Acting together in a community play
Acting together in a community play was how it began: for Nixon it was love at first sight, but Pat turned him down several times before she agreed to a date.
Q 12What were the names of Nixon's two daughters?
Tricia and Julie
Tricia and Julie grew up in public view. Julie married David Eisenhower, grandson of the president her father had served under, and spoke up for Nixon in public throughout Watergate.
Q 13Nixon helped finance his first congressional campaign with winnings from what?
Poker
Q 21Why did Nixon have no formal power to act after Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack?
The 25th Amendment had not yet been proposed
The 25th Amendment had not yet been proposed, so Nixon simply chaired Cabinet meetings until Eisenhower recovered, and his low-key restraint won wide praise.
Q 22In which two South American capitals did hostile crowds attack Vice President Nixon during his 1958 goodwill tour?
Lima and Caracas
Lima and Caracas were the flashpoints: rioters in Venezuela attacked his motorcade, yet his coolness under fire made headlines and only left him more popular back home.
Q 23Nixon's impromptu 1959 argument with Khrushchev took place in front of what?
Poker paid because Nixon played it patiently: a fellow Navy officer told him to fold unless he held the best hand, he did exactly that, and he sent thousands of dollars home.
Q 14Which Democratic incumbent did Nixon defeat to win his House seat in 1946?
Jerry Voorhis
Jerry Voorhis, a five-term incumbent, challenged Nixon in a debate to prove a communist-linked group backed him; Nixon stepped forward with a bulletin listing Voorhis among its picks.
Q 15Nixon first gained national attention through his role on which congressional body?
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Un-American Activities Committee heard Alger Hiss deny being a communist, and many observers believed him; first-term congressman Nixon insisted the hearings go on, and the case made his name.
Q 16What were the microfilms Whittaker Chambers hid in a field during the Hiss case called?
The Pumpkin Papers
The Pumpkin Papers were named for their hiding place, a pumpkin Chambers had hollowed out on his Maryland farm; Nixon paraded the film before the press, and Hiss was indicted within two weeks.
Q 17Nixon's 1950 Senate campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas earned him what lasting nickname?
Tricky Dick
Tricky Dick was the label Douglas made stick after Nixon called her 'pink right down to her underwear'; he won the seat by a wide margin but never shook the name.
Q 18Nixon's 1952 televised defence of his political fund became known by what name?
The Checkers speech
The Checkers speech ended with Nixon asking viewers to wire the Republican National Committee on whether he should quit the ticket; telegrams poured in, and Eisenhower kept him.
Q 19What kind of animal was the gift Nixon vowed on television in 1952 that his family would keep?
A cocker spaniel
A cocker spaniel, shipped in a crate from Texas; Nixon put the dog in the speech on purpose, copying Franklin Roosevelt's famous defence of his own dog Fala to needle his opponents.
Q 20In his 1952 fund speech, Nixon said his wife owned no mink but wore what?
A respectable Republican cloth coat
A respectable Republican cloth coat was a dig as well as a boast: a mink coat given to an official's wife was then at the centre of a Truman administration bribery scandal.
A model American kitchen
A model American kitchen at a Moscow trade fair set the scene; Nixon boasted that America led in colour television, the very technology taping their argument for broadcast in both countries.
Q 24Who was Nixon's running mate in the 1960 presidential election?
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. had already lost to Kennedy once, when the young congressman took his Massachusetts Senate seat in 1952; in 1960 the same opponent beat him a second time.
Q 25Republicans cried ballot-stuffing in Texas and which other state after Nixon's 1960 loss?
Illinois
Illinois, home of Mayor Daley's Chicago machine, was where the charges centred; Nixon refused to demand a recount and said publicly he would not contest the result.
Q 26What was the title of the bestselling book Nixon wrote after leaving the vice presidency?
Six Crises
Six Crises ends in defeat: five chapters cover scrapes he came through, from a spy case to a Moscow showdown, and the sixth is the 1960 election he lost to Kennedy.
Q 27After losing the 1962 California governor's race, Nixon told reporters they wouldn't have him to do what?
Kick around
Kick around was his parting shot at what he called his last press conference; ABC aired a special billed as his political obituary, and six years later he was elected president.
Q 28Where was Nixon on the morning of November 22, 1963?
Dallas
Dallas had him in town on business for Pepsi-Cola; he flew home that morning, hours before President Kennedy was shot in a motorcade there.
Q 29Which Maryland governor did Nixon pick as his running mate in 1968?
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 in a scandal unrelated to Watergate: investigated for taking kickbacks in Maryland, he pleaded no contest to a single charge of tax evasion.
Q 30In a televised 1969 address on the Vietnam War, Nixon asked which group of Americans for their support?
The silent majority
The silent majority was his new catchphrase for Americans who stayed out of the anti-war marches; he insisted on writing the speech himself, barely involving his speechwriters.