True or False Trivia
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98 free True or False trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
True or false trivia works best when the false answers are things everybody believes. These 98 questions are built from the most widely repeated myths in history, science, nature, food, sport and pop culture: bulls and the color red, the memory of a goldfish, Napoleon's height, the wooden teeth of George Washington, the shelf life of a Twinkie, and whether lightning really strikes twice. In each set you are shown four claims and asked to find the one that is true (or, now and then, the one that is false). It is a good format for a mixed crowd, because nobody needs specialist knowledge to have an opinion, and the answers tend to start arguments. Use it as a pub quiz round, a classroom warm-up, a road-trip game or a solo test of how much of what you "know" is actually so. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's documented lists of common misconceptions or the relevant encyclopedia article, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up once you have answered.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which of these claims about lightning is TRUE?
It strikes tall buildings again and again
It strikes tall buildings again and again: the Empire State Building takes about two dozen hits a year. Lone trees get the same treatment, because a bolt goes for the local high point.
Q 02Which claim about China's Great Wall is TRUE?
A 1932 cartoon called it visible from the Moon
A 1932 cartoon called it visible from the Moon: Ripley's named the wall the only human work to be seen from there, decades before anyone could check. Built from local stone and earth, it blends into the land even from low orbit.
Q 03Which claim about Napoleon Bonaparte is TRUE?
He was about average height for his era
He was about average height for his era: his recorded 5 ft 2 was in French units, about 5 ft 6 in British ones. The tiny, raging 'Little Boney' was the work of the cartoonist James Gillray.
Q 04Which claim about camels is TRUE?
Their humps are stores of fat
Their humps are stores of fat, a food reserve that shrinks and flops to one side as it is used up. Water is another matter: a thirsty camel can gulp down about 30 gallons at one go.
Q 05Which statement about Viking warriors is TRUE?
Wagner's operas made their horned helmets famous
Wagner's operas made their horned helmets famous: the costume designer for his 1876 Ring cycle put horns on the Norse characters, and the look stuck. The Viking helmet dug up at Gjermundbu in Norway is a plain rounded iron cap.
Q 06Which of these is a TRUE statement about bats?
All species have eyes and can see
All species have eyes and can see, and the big fruit bats, which mostly do without echolocation, find their way by sight. Only three of some 1,400 species feed on blood.
Q 07Which claim about goldfish is TRUE?
They can remember things for months
They can remember things for months: goldfish taught that one colour means food keep picking it long after the training stops, and they can be trained on sounds too.
Q 08Which claim about Albert Einstein is TRUE?
He was studying calculus at twelve
He was studying calculus at twelve, years ahead of his class, and laughed off a Ripley's column that claimed he had failed maths. At 16 he did fail the Zurich Polytechnic entrance exam, but not on maths or physics, where he shone.
Q 09Which claim about Marie Antoinette is TRUE?
Rousseau wrote the line in her childhood
Rousseau wrote the line in her childhood, crediting it only to 'a great princess' while she was still a girl in Vienna. A version had been told a century earlier about Marie-Thérèse, wife of Louis XIV.
Q 10Which claim about the Salem witch trials is TRUE?
Nineteen of the convicted were hanged
Nineteen of the convicted were hanged, and the elderly Giles Corey was crushed to death under heavy stones because he refused to enter a plea at all.
Q 11Which claim about George Washington is TRUE?
His dentures used ivory and human teeth
His dentures used ivory and human teeth, held together with brass and gold, and he had a single tooth of his own left when he became president. Stained ivory may have passed for wood and started the myth.
Q 12Which claim about the US Declaration of Independence is TRUE?
Congress broke with Britain on July 2
Congress broke with Britain on July 2, voting for independence on the day John Adams told his wife would be celebrated for generations. July 4 is when it approved the Declaration's wording and sent it to the printer.
Q 13Which claim about Benjamin Franklin is TRUE?
Q 21Which claim about hippos is TRUE?
A red skin secretion works as their sunscreen
A red skin secretion works as their sunscreen: it oozes out clear, turns red within minutes and soaks up ultraviolet light. Its pigments also slow the growth of bacteria.
Q 22Which claim about lemmings is TRUE?
A 1958 Disney film faked the cliff-jumping
A 1958 Disney film faked the cliff-jumping: the White Wilderness crew brought a small group of lemmings to landlocked Alberta and pushed them off a riverbank for the camera.
Q 23Which claim about ostriches is TRUE?
His proposal for the seal was an image of Moses
His proposal for the seal was an image of Moses drowning Pharaoh in the Red Sea, with the motto 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God'. His turkey remark came in a letter to his daughter, griping that an eagle design looked like one.
Q 14Which claim about Isaac Newton is TRUE?
He told the apple story himself
He told the apple story himself: over tea under some apple trees in 1726, he told William Stukeley that a falling apple had set him thinking about gravity. Plague had shut Cambridge, so he was home at Woolsthorpe when it fell.
Q 15Which claim about Julius Caesar is TRUE?
His mother was alive when he was 45
His mother was alive when he was 45: Aurelia is said to have lived to hear of his invasion of Britain, and in Rome the operation was performed only on women who were dead or dying.
Q 16Which claim about the Egyptian pyramids is TRUE?
Paid labourers built them
Paid labourers built them: digs at Giza found a workers' town that fed its crews beef, and tombs for them right beside the pyramids. Slaves would not have been buried with such honour.
Q 17Which claim about Cinco de Mayo is TRUE?
It marks a victory over the French at Puebla
It marks a victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, when an outnumbered Mexican force beat Napoleon III's army. It is a minor holiday in Mexico, where independence falls on September 16.
Q 18Which claim about the Gettysburg Address is TRUE?
Lincoln began writing it at the White House
Lincoln began writing it at the White House, on Executive Mansion paper, and finished it in Gettysburg. The two-hour speech that day was Edward Everett's; Lincoln's ran about two minutes.
Q 19Which claim about bulls and bullfighting is TRUE?
The cape's movement draws the charge
The cape's movement draws the charge: cattle are colour-blind to red, and bulls rush the matador's magenta-and-gold capote just as hard. The small muleta is red by tradition, and to mask the blood.
Q 20Which claim about dogs is TRUE?
They sweat mainly through their footpads
They sweat mainly through their footpads, which is why a hot or nervous dog can leave damp paw prints. That sheds very little heat, so panting does most of the cooling.
They lie flat on the ground to hide
They lie flat on the ground to hide, neck stretched out along the soil. The pale head and neck blend in, so from a distance only the body shows and the head looks buried.
Q 24Which claim about a duck's quack is TRUE?
Its echo is just hard to hear
Its echo is just hard to hear: Salford University acousticians recorded a quack echoing round a reverberation chamber in 2003. A quack is quiet and fades out, so the echo blurs into it.
Q 25Which claim about sharks is TRUE?
Tumours have been found in many species
Tumours have been found in many species of shark. The myth took off with a 1992 bestseller, Sharks Don't Get Cancer, whose author was promoting shark-cartilage pills as a cancer treatment.
Q 26Which claim about chameleons is TRUE?
They change colour mostly for mood and heat
They change colour mostly for mood and heat: a male flushes brighter to face down a rival, and a cold chameleon turns darker to soak up warmth.
Q 27Which claim about the "boiling frog" story is TRUE?
Biologists say a heated frog climbs out
Biologists say a heated frog climbs out: frogs control their temperature by moving, so one in warming water leaves when it gets uncomfortable. The tale traces to disputed 19th-century lab reports.
Q 28Which claim about houseflies is TRUE?
They live for a few weeks
They live for a few weeks as adults, typically two to four. A day is nearer the time their eggs take: those hatch into maggots within about 24 hours.
Q 29Which claim about earthworms is TRUE?
The head half may regrow a tail
The head half may regrow a tail, but only if the cut falls behind the clitellum, the swollen band near the front. The tail half usually dies, so most cuts leave one worm, not two.
Q 30Which claim about mature sunflowers is TRUE?
The heads face one fixed direction
The heads face one fixed direction, usually east: only young buds track the Sun. East-facing blooms warm up faster in the morning, and warm flowers draw more bees.