50 free World's Fairs trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This world's fairs trivia quiz runs from the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London's Crystal Palace to the Osaka Expo of 2025. The easy questions are ones most people can reason out: the tower built as the entrance arch to the 1889 Paris fair, the ride invented to rival it in Chicago in 1893, the Seattle landmark left behind by the 1962 fair, the giant steel globe in Queens and the nine-sphere iron molecule that still stands in Brussels. The harder end is for history and architecture buffs: the fair that hosted the first American Olympics, the codename-style themes of the New York fairs, the exposition where Bell showed his telephone beside the Statue of Liberty's arm, the modular housing block Moshe Safdie built for Montreal, the Tower of the Sun in Osaka, the only world's fair to go bankrupt while open, the record 73 million visitors of Shanghai 2010, and the Paris body that has sanctioned expos since 1928. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for each exposition and its landmarks before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Eiffel Tower, Inventions and State Fair quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which part of London was the Great Exhibition of 1851 held?
Hyde Park
Six million people visited, about a third of the population of England and Wales at the time.
Q 02Who designed the Crystal Palace that housed the Great Exhibition?
Joseph Paxton
Paxton drew on his experience building greenhouses for the Duke of Devonshire, and the building went up in nine months.
Q 03Which royal is credited with the idea for the 1851 Great Exhibition?
Prince Albert
The exhibition's surplus went on to fund the Victoria and Albert, Science and Natural History museums.
Q 04Which famous diamond drew crowds to the India exhibit at the Great Exhibition?
Koh-i-Noor
Visitors also queued to pay a penny for George Jennings' flush toilets, the first modern public ones.
Q 05Where was the Crystal Palace re-erected after the 1851 exhibition closed?
Sydenham
Sir Henry Buckland, walking his dog, spotted the red glow of the fatal fire on the evening of 30 November 1936; his daughter was named Crystal after the building.
Q 06Which city organised what is called the first world's fair, in 1791?
Prague
It was held in the Clementinum for the coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia.
Q 07Which centenary did the Paris Exposition Universelle of the Eiffel Tower celebrate?
The storming of the Bastille
It was also meant to pull France out of an economic recession.
Q 08In which year did the Eiffel Tower open as the centrepiece of a Paris world's fair?
1889
It was then the tallest structure in the world, and its permanent preservation was only decided in 1909, when Eiffel's concession ran out.
Q 09A protest group against the Eiffel Tower took its name from what number?
Three hundred, one per metre of height
Signatories included Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet.
Q 10Which anniversary was the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago meant to celebrate?
Columbus reaching the Americas
It opened a year late, in 1893, for the 400th anniversary of the 1492 voyage.
Q 11What nickname did the 1893 Chicago fairgrounds get from its pale neoclassical buildings?
The White City
Daniel Burnham was director of works and Frederick Law Olmsted laid out the grounds.
Q 12Which ride debuted at the 1893 Chicago fair as an answer to the Eiffel Tower?
The Ferris wheel
Its late June opening helped save the fair from bankruptcy.
Q 13How many people could the giant wheel at the 1893 Chicago fair carry at once?
2,160
It was finally dynamited for scrap in St. Louis in 1906 after a second life at the 1904 fair.
Q 21Which food is most popularly claimed to have been introduced at the 1904 St. Louis fair?
The ice cream cone
Hot dogs, iced tea and cotton candy claims are considered dubious, since they existed earlier.
Q 22Which anniversary did the 1904 St. Louis exposition commemorate?
The Louisiana Purchase
Like Chicago's, it opened a year late, and it inspired the song and film Meet Me in St. Louis.
Q 23Which Paris structures built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle still stand?
The Grand Palais and Petit Palais
Q 14Which electrical system triumphed by lighting the 1893 Chicago fair?
Westinghouse's alternating current
Westinghouse underbid General Electric by 70 cents per lamp to win the contract.
Q 15Which Chicago mayor was assassinated two days before the 1893 fair closed?
Carter Harrison
Cermak was killed decades later, in 1933, by a bullet meant for Franklin Roosevelt.
Q 16Which chewing gum was among products launched at the 1893 Chicago fair?
Juicy Fruit
Shredded Wheat and Cream of Wheat also made their debut at the fair.
Q 17Which city hosted the 1876 Centennial Exposition, America's first official world's fair?
Philadelphia
President Grant and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil started the giant Corliss steam engine to open Machinery Hall.
Q 18Which invention did Alexander Graham Bell show at the 1876 Centennial Exposition?
The telephone
Heinz Ketchup and Hires Root Beer also had their public debuts there.
Q 19Which part of the Statue of Liberty was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition?
The right arm and torch
The complete statue was not dedicated in New York Harbor until 1886.
Q 20Which Olympic Games were held as part of the 1904 St. Louis world's fair?
The first on American soil
Many Europeans stayed away because of travel costs and the Russo-Japanese War, and even Coubertin did not attend.
The fair also brought international attention to the Art Nouveau style.
Q 24Which Paris transit route opened for the 1900 exposition?
Métro Line 1
Escalators, talking films and matryoshka dolls were also shown to the world at the fair.
Q 25Which waterway's completion did the 1915 San Francisco exposition celebrate?
Panama Canal
Its 435-foot Tower of Jewels was the centrepiece; only the Palace of Fine Arts survives on site.
Q 26Which fan dancer became a famous attraction of Chicago's 1933 Century of Progress fair?
Sally Rand
The Burlington Zephyr arrived on stage there in 1934 after a record dawn-to-dusk run from Denver.
Q 27What was the theme of the 1939 New York fair?
Building the World of Tomorrow
Its Trylon and Perisphere held Democracity, a diorama of a utopian city of the future.
Q 28Which two structures formed the symbol of the 1939 New York fair?
Trylon and Perisphere
The 610-foot spire and 180-foot sphere were linked by what was then the world's longest escalator.
Q 29Which company's Futurama exhibit showed a model city of the future at the 1939 fair?
General Motors
Westinghouse's stand starred Elektro, a robot that talked and smoked cigarettes.
Q 30Which Brussels landmark was built for Expo 58?
The Atomium
Expo 58 was the first major world's fair registered with the BIE after the Second World War.