Smithsonian Trivia
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49 free Smithsonian trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Smithsonian trivia quiz begins with the oddest origin story in American culture: a British chemist who never set foot in the United States left his fortune to found an establishment in Washington "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge", and Congress spent eight years arguing about what that meant. From there it moves through the Castle, the Board of Regents, Joseph Henry and the Megatherium Club, the Arts and Industries Building and Alexander Graham Bell's trip to Genoa to bring Smithson's bones home. The museum questions cover the Air and Space Museum's Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis and Apollo 11 capsule, the Natural History Museum's Hope Diamond, the American History Museum's Star-Spangled Banner and Greensboro lunch counter, the National Zoo's pandas, the Freer, the Hirshhorn, the Postal Museum and the newest buildings on the Mall. Numbers questions test the collection size, visitor totals, budget and how little is actually on display. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Washington, D.C. and famous museums quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Smithsonian's vast and eclectic collections have earned it which affectionate nickname?
The nation's attic
The nation's attic: like a real attic, nearly everything in it is packed away out of sight, with only a sliver of the collection on show at any one time.
Q 02The Smithsonian is named after its founding donor, a scientist of which nationality?
British
British: James Smithson was an English chemist, though he was born in secret in Paris, where his mother had gone to hide her pregnancy.
Q 03James Smithson's will funded an establishment in Washington for what stated purpose?
The increase and diffusion of knowledge
The increase and diffusion of knowledge: the mandate was so vague that Congress argued for years over whether it meant a university, a library, an observatory or a museum.
Q 04James Smithson's fortune passed to the United States only after what happened?
His nephew died childless
His nephew died childless: Henry James Hungerford inherited first, and his death in 1835 sent the estate to a country that Smithson had never visited.
Q 05Before reaching the Smithsonian in 1948, the 1903 Wright Flyer spent twenty years on loan to a museum in which city?
London
London: it sat in the Science Museum while Orville Wright fought the Smithsonian over its claim that a former secretary's machine had been capable of flight before the Wrights flew.
Q 06Smithsonite, the mineral named after James Smithson, is an ore of which metal used with copper to make brass?
Zinc
Zinc: Smithson's chemical analysis of calamine, an ore vital to brass-making, led to its zinc carbonate being named smithsonite in his honour.
Q 07One of the Smithsonian's most popular exhibitions began in 1912 when first lady Helen Taft donated what?
Her inaugural gown
Her inaugural gown: she had worn it to her husband's 1909 inaugural ball, and her gift set a tradition, as every first lady since has given the museum a dress.
Q 08How was Smithson's bequest physically delivered to the United States in 1838?
As gold sovereigns
As gold sovereigns: Richard Rush sailed home with 104,960 of them, and the Philadelphia Mint recoined them into just over half a million American dollars.
Q 09Which puppet in the Smithsonian's collection was first made from his creator's mother's old coat and a halved ping-pong ball?
Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog: Jim Henson built him in 1955 for a local Washington television show, and that first version looked more like a lizard than a frog.
Q 10Which former president, then a congressman, fought to preserve Smithson's fund for an institution of learning?
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams led the side that beat senators such as John C. Calhoun, who argued that Congress had no constitutional power to accept the gift.
Q 11Which president signed the legislation establishing the Smithsonian on August 10, 1846?
James K. Polk
James K. Polk signed the act the day Congress passed it, creating a body that sits outside all three branches of government and answers to its own Board of Regents.
Q 12The Smithsonian's first secretary was which scientist, whose surname became the unit of inductance?
Joseph Henry
Joseph Henry also signed up hundreds of volunteer weather observers who reported to the Smithsonian, a network that grew into the national weather service.
Q 13What is the nickname of the Smithsonian Institution Building, opened in 1855?
The Castle
Q 21Which television cook's home kitchen stands in the National Museum of American History?
Julia Child
Julia Child: she stood over six feet tall, so the counters in the kitchen she planned with her husband Paul were made two inches higher than standard.
Q 22Which flag sits in a climate-controlled chamber at the National Museum of American History?
The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner flew over Fort McHenry and inspired the national anthem; it is shorter than it was because its owners snipped off dozens of pieces as souvenirs.
Q 23A lunch counter from which city is a signature civil-rights artefact at the Smithsonian?
Greensboro
The Castle: a fire in 1865 gutted its upper floor and destroyed the papers and mineral collection of James Smithson himself.
Q 14What kind of stone is the Smithsonian's original 1855 building made from?
Seneca red sandstone
Seneca red sandstone: builders prized it because it is soft enough to carve easily when freshly quarried and then hardens on exposure to the air.
Q 15Which club of young Smithsonian naturalists in the 1850s named itself after a giant extinct ground sloth?
The Megatherium Club
The Megatherium Club: its members lodged in the Smithsonian's own building, where they held sack races down the halls and sang beneath the windows of the secretary's daughters.
Q 16Which 1876 event's profits funded the Smithsonian's first expansion, the Arts and Industries Building?
The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition
The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition also gave many of its displays, and the building put up for them hosted a ball for the newly sworn-in President Garfield before a single exhibit went in.
Q 17Which famous landscape architect designed the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park in Washington?
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted laid out the grounds after William Hornaday, a Smithsonian taxidermist shocked by the bison's near-extinction, campaigned for a zoo that would save species.
Q 18Which animals are the best-known residents of the National Zoo?
Giant pandas
Giant pandas: the first pair arrived in 1972 as a gift from China after President Nixon's historic visit, and first lady Pat Nixon welcomed them to the zoo in person.
Q 19Which famous bear lived at the Smithsonian's National Zoo from 1950 to 1976?
Smokey
Smokey: rescued as a cub from a New Mexico wildfire, he became the living symbol of fire prevention and drew so many letters that the Postal Service gave him his own ZIP code.
Q 20Whistler covered which dining room in blue paint and golden birds before it was moved to the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery?
The Peacock Room
The Peacock Room: its owner, a Liverpool shipping magnate, felt Whistler had gone far beyond his commission, and Charles Lang Freer later bought the entire room.
Greensboro: four Black college students asked to be served at the whites-only Woolworth's counter there in 1960, and within weeks sit-ins had spread across the South.
Q 24Which Second World War bomber, displayed at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center, was named after its pilot's mother?
Enola Gay
Enola Gay: Paul Tibbets gave the B-29 his mother's name shortly before flying it to Hiroshima, and the museum's planned 1995 exhibit around the plane was cancelled amid fierce opposition and replaced by a far smaller one.
Q 25Which Apollo 11 astronaut was director of the Air and Space Museum when its building opened?
Michael Collins
Michael Collins, who stayed in lunar orbit while his two crewmates walked on the Moon, became the museum's director in 1971 and opened its building on the Mall for the Bicentennial in 1976.
Q 26What was the name of the Apollo 11 command module held on the National Mall?
Columbia
Columbia is the only part of the Apollo 11 spacecraft that came back to Earth, so it is the one piece of the first Moon landing mission that a museum could ever hold whole.
Q 27Which television spaceship's original studio model has been in the Smithsonian's Air and Space collection since 1974?
The USS Enterprise
The USS Enterprise: Paramount donated the 11-foot model that was filmed for the original 1960s Star Trek series.
Q 28Near which airport is the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center?
Dulles International
Dulles International: the hangars beside it hold what the building on the Mall cannot, including the Space Shuttle Discovery, a Concorde and an SR-71 Blackbird.
Q 29Which famous gem reached the Smithsonian in 1958 by registered mail, in a box wrapped in brown paper?
The Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond: sending it cost $145.29, nearly all of it insurance on a million dollars, and the National Postal Museum still keeps the wrapper.
Q 30Which jeweller gave the Smithsonian its most famous gem in 1958?
Harry Winston
Harry Winston bought the blue stone from the estate of Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean in 1949 and showed it at charity events for a decade before giving it away.