Trivia for Adults
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95 free Trivia for Adults trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
These trivia questions for adults are the kind you would want at a pub quiz, a dinner party or a long car ride: real general knowledge, not cartoon characters, and trivia for men and women alike. The set mixes history (Magna Carta, Prohibition, the fall of the Berlin Wall), geography (which country has the most time zones, the only non-rectangular flag), science, classic and modern film, sport, food and drink, music, literature and a little art and technology. Difficulty runs from warm-up questions almost everyone gets to a handful that will split the table, and no category dominates, so a history buff and a film nerd have an equal shot. Play it solo to see how you score, or read the questions out and keep tally for a game night with friends. Every answer has been checked against a Wikipedia article or another reference page, and each question shows its source once you have answered, so any argument about a result can be settled on the spot.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country was the first in the world to give all women the right to vote in national elections?
New Zealand
New Zealand's 1893 Electoral Act, won by Kate Sheppard's petition campaign, made it the first self-governing country to let all adult women vote; Sheppard now appears on the NZ$10 note.
Q 02Which US president said 'tear down this wall' in Berlin?
Reagan
Ronald Reagan said it at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, keeping the line although top advisers had urged him to drop it.
Q 03Which English king sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215?
John
King John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215 but soon got Pope Innocent III to annul it, and civil war with the barons followed.
Q 04Who flew the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927?
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis carried a fuel tank ahead of the cockpit, so he had no front windshield and could see ahead only through a periscope or side windows.
Q 05Suleiman the Magnificent was the longest-reigning sultan of which empire?
Ottoman
Suleiman ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until he died besieging Szigetvár in Hungary in 1566, and his death was kept secret from his soldiers.
Q 06The Titanic, lost on her maiden voyage, was built at a shipyard in which city?
Belfast
Belfast's Harland and Wolff built Titanic, and her sinking prompted the first international Safety of Life at Sea convention, adopted in 1914.
Q 07Who designed the new St Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire of London?
Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren was Oxford's professor of astronomy when he turned to architecture, a few years before the 1666 fire destroyed old St Paul's.
Q 08Who resigned as Soviet president in December 1991?
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev had been weakened by a failed coup in August 1991, when hardline communists briefly held him under house arrest.
Q 09Who is the only US president to have resigned from office?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974 rather than face likely impeachment for his part in the Watergate cover-up.
Q 10Which amendment to the US Constitution ended nationwide Prohibition of alcohol?
Twenty-first
The Twenty-first Amendment left alcohol control to the states, and some stayed dry for decades: Mississippi kept statewide prohibition until 1966.
Q 11Who holds the record for the longest reign of any British monarch?
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II was in Kenya, on a tour bound for Australia, when news came in February 1952 that her father had died and she was queen.
Q 12Which country was the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriage?
Netherlands
The Netherlands' law took effect on 1 April 2001, when Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, married four same-sex couples at midnight.
Q 13Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong took over piloting the lunar module late in the descent to steer past a boulder-strewn landing area.
Q 21Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in which country?
Tanzania
Kilimanjaro stands in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border, and although it lies close to the Equator, its summit carries an ice cap.
Q 22Which US state has the longest coastline?
Alaska
Alaska was sold to the United States by Russia in 1867, largely because Russia feared losing the hard-to-defend colony to Britain.
Q 23Which country has the world's only non-rectangular national flag?
Nepal
Nepal's flag is two stacked pennants, and until the 1962 redesign the sun and moon on it had human faces.
What is the largest hot desert in the world?
Q 14Which Chicago gangster built a bootlegging empire during US Prohibition?
Al Capone
Al Capone ran Chicago's bootlegging rackets, but what finally sent him to federal prison, in 1931, was a conviction for tax evasion.
Q 15Which city was built as Australia's capital as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne?
Canberra
Canberra took over in 1927, when Parliament moved from Melbourne, which had served as the temporary seat of government while the capital was built.
Q 16Counting overseas territories, which country has the most time zones?
France
France spans 12 time zones once French Polynesia, Réunion and New Caledonia are counted, one more than Russia's 11.
Q 17Which river is Europe's longest, pushing the Danube into second place?
Volga
The Volga flows through Russia into the landlocked Caspian Sea, so Europe's longest river never reaches an ocean.
Q 18Which is the world's smallest sovereign state by area?
Vatican City
Vatican City became an independent state in 1929 through the Lateran Treaty with Fascist Italy, which settled the long dispute over the pope's status in Rome.
Q 19Which city spans two continents, with districts on both the European and Asian shores?
Istanbul
Istanbul was an imperial capital for centuries, yet the new Turkish Republic chose Ankara as its capital in 1923.
Q 20Which is the most populous country in Africa?
Nigeria
Nigeria moved its capital from Lagos to Abuja, but Lagos remains the country's leading commercial and industrial city.
Sahara
The Sahara has swung between desert and savanna over thousands of years, and people once lived, hunted and fished beside lakes there.
Q 25Which river carries more water to the sea than any other in the world?
Amazon
The Amazon is said to take its name from Francisco de Orellana's reports of battles with warrior women, whom he likened to the Amazons of Greek myth.
Q 26Which building, completed in 2010, became the world's tallest at about 828 metres?
Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa was called Burj Dubai until its opening, when it was renamed after Abu Dhabi's ruler, whose emirate had just helped Dubai pay off its debts.
Q 27The Swiss franc is legal tender in Switzerland and which other country?
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein shares Switzerland's franc and a customs union with it, and it abolished its own army in 1868.
Q 28What is the chemical symbol for gold?
Au
Au comes from aurum, the Latin word for gold, and because gold does not corrode it is used to coat electrical connectors.
Q 29Which planet is sometimes called Earth's twin?
Venus
Venus is near Earth's size, yet its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet, hotter even than Mercury.
Q 30How many bones does a typical adult human skeleton have?
206
An adult has 206 bones, but a newborn has more, because many of a baby's bones fuse together as it grows.