White
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40 free White trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
White is the colour of snow, salt and fresh paper, and it turns up everywhere once you start looking: in physics labs, on flags and football kits, in idioms, and in the names of some very famous people and places. This quiz covers the science of white light and white pigment, animals that wear white (and a few that only seem to), great whites of the sea, and the customs that grew up around white dresses, feathers, flags and smoke. It also visits the White House, the White Album, Snow White and Walter White along the way. It is pitched for general-knowledge players: most questions are gettable with a little thought, a handful are for specialists, and every answer comes with a short explanation so you leave knowing why.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Beneath the thick white-looking fur of a polar bear, what colour is the animal's skin?
Black
Black skin lies under a polar bear's coat and soaks up heat. The fur only looks white: its outer guard hairs are actually transparent.
Q 02Which British monarch is credited with popularising the white wedding dress after wearing one to marry in 1840?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in white satin trimmed with Honiton lace. Royal brides before her usually chose heavy brocade worked with silver thread.
Q 03Which classic board game's rules give the first move to the player with the white pieces?
Chess
Chess hands White the opening move, an edge worth 52 to 56 percent of the points in recorded games. In Othello and Gomoku the darker side goes first.
Q 04Which marine mammal is known to hunt great white sharks, flipping them over to eat their energy-rich livers?
Orca
Orca pods turn great whites belly-up, which puts the shark into a paralysed state called tonic immobility. The prize, the liver, can be over a quarter of the shark's body weight.
Q 05The White Cliffs of Dover on England's south coast owe their colour to which soft rock?
Chalk
Chalk formed there from the skeletons of tiny floating algae that settled as white mud on a Late Cretaceous sea floor. The dark streaks in the cliff face are bands of flint.
Q 06Which of the seven dwarfs in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs never speaks a word?
Dopey
Dopey was drawn up as a chatterbox, but no voice actor suited him, so he mimes instead. He proved the most successful of the dwarf characters.
Q 07Which American crooner's 1942 recording of White Christmas is the world's best-selling physical single?
Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby's version has sold an estimated 50 million copies. He first sang it on his radio show on Christmas Day 1941, a few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Q 08During the First World War, British women handed white feathers to men out of uniform as a symbol of what?
Cowardice
Cowardice was the charge, and the campaign aimed to shame men into enlisting. The phrase dates from the late 18th century and came out of cockfighting, a common entertainment in Georgian England.
Q 09Which band's self-titled 1968 double album is better known as the White Album for its plain sleeve?
The Beatles
The Beatles put nothing on the cover but the band's name, embossed. Early copies each carried a stamped serial number, a joke about a numbered edition that ran to millions.
Q 10White smoke from a temporary chimney on which Vatican building announces the election of a new pope?
Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel conclaves burn the cardinals' ballots after voting. Chemicals are added to colour the smoke, and since 2005 the bells of St Peter's ring as well to confirm the result.
Q 11Which English scientist used a glass prism to show that white light is a blend of all the colours?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton split sunlight with one prism, then used a lens and a second prism to merge the colours back into white. He also gave the band of colours its name, the spectrum.
Q 12The mechanical great white shark in Jaws was nicknamed Bruce after which person in Steven Spielberg's life?
His lawyer
His lawyer, Bruce Ramer, lent the name to all three prop sharks. They broke down so often in salt water that Spielberg chose mostly to suggest the creature rather than show it.
Q 13Which Arctic whale, nicknamed the sea canary for its high-pitched calls, is completely white as an adult?
Beluga
Q 21White blood cells, which defend the body against infection, are known by which scientific name?
Leukocytes
Leukocytes are made in the bone marrow and patrol both the blood and the lymphatic system. A doctor counts them because their number often signals disease.
Q 22Albinism leaves an animal with white fur or pale feathers because its body cannot produce which pigment?
Melanin
Melanin is the only pigment most mammals have, so a mammal that cannot make it has no other colour to fall back on. The classic albino also has pink pupils.
Q 23Which small predator's pure white winter coat, long used to line coronation cloaks, is known as ermine?
Stoat
Stoat pelts were sewn together to line medieval coronation cloaks, with the dark tail tips left hanging as a pattern. British peers' ceremonial robes are traditionally trimmed with the fur.
Beluga calves are born grey and whiten as they grow. The species has no dorsal fin, which lets it swim easily beneath sea ice.
Q 14Which Grand Slam tennis tournament enforces a strict all-white dress code for its players?
Wimbledon
Wimbledon allows only small accents of colour on players' clothing. Its tennis balls were white too until 1986, when yellow ones came in to stand out on colour television.
Q 15Which sea captain hunts the white whale that bit off his leg in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick?
Ahab
Ahab commands the whaling ship Pequod and walks on a false leg carved from a whale's jawbone. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print when Melville died.
Q 16Which president became the first to live in the White House when he moved in during November 1800?
John Adams
John Adams moved in on 1 November 1800, when the capital shifted from Philadelphia. Every president after him has used the house as a home.
Q 17Which Mughal emperor commissioned the white marble Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal?
Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan ordered it in 1631, the year Mumtaz Mahal died giving birth to their 14th child. His own tomb lies in the same building.
Q 18Which actor played chemistry teacher turned drug lord Walter White in the television series Breaking Bad?
Bryan Cranston
Bryan Cranston won four Emmys for the part. Network executives hesitated to cast him because he was known for comedy as the dad in Malcolm in the Middle.
Q 19Mont Blanc, the 'white mountain' and highest Alpine peak, straddles the border of France and which country?
Italy
Italy and France have long disputed who owns the summit. Italian officials say the border splits the peak along the watershed, while French officials place the whole top inside France.
Q 20Which crisp, airy dessert is made by whipping egg whites with sugar and baking the foam slowly?
Meringue
Meringue stands up because beating unfolds the proteins in egg white into a stiff foam. It forms the base of a pavlova and the top of a lemon pie.
Q 24Which Manhattan street earned the nickname the Great White Way from the glare of its electric signs?
Broadway
Broadway was ablaze with electric advertising signs by the 1890s. The nickname is said to have been lifted from the title of a 1901 novel about a voyage to the Antarctic.
Q 25In England's Wars of the Roses, which side fought under the badge of a white rose?
The Yorkists
The Yorkists used the white rose from early in the conflict. Their rivals' red rose was introduced only after Henry Tudor won at Bosworth in 1485, so the famous pairing is largely hindsight.
Q 26Betty White played the naive Rose Nylund in which sitcom about four older women sharing a home in Miami?
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls nearly had her in a different part: producers first wanted Betty White as man-hungry Blanche and Rue McClanahan as Rose, then swapped them.
Q 27Which Spanish football club is nicknamed Los Blancos, 'the whites', after its all-white home kit?
Real Madrid
Real Madrid has kept a white home shirt throughout its history. The look so impressed Leeds United manager Don Revie that he switched his own club to an all-white strip.
Q 28In the Tour de France, the white jersey is worn by the leading rider in which category?
Young riders
Young riders, those under 26, compete for it. From 1968 to 1975 the white jersey instead marked the best all-rounder across the overall, points and climbing contests.
Q 29In The Lord of the Rings, which character dies fighting a Balrog in Moria and is sent back clothed in white?
Gandalf
Gandalf returns as head of the order of wizards, the rank the traitor Saruman had held. Scholars have likened his return in white to the transfiguration of Christ.
Q 30Which former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe has a name often translated as White Russia?
Belarus
Belarus comes from Belaya Rus, and several rival theories explain the 'white'. One holds that it described the Rus lands the Tatars never conquered.