Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
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This American Revolution quiz has 216 free questions with answers and runs from the Boston Tea Party and the shot heard round the world through Saratoga, the winter at Valley Forge and the surrender at Yorktown. Expect the famous names — Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette, Benedict Arnold — alongside the battles and figures that usually get skipped: Cowpens, Kings Mountain, Camden, Nathan Hale and the real woman behind Molly Pitcher. It works as a warm-up for a history class, a July 4th party round or a straight test of what you remember from school. Questions range from easy to genuinely hard, so beginners and buffs can play the same set. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its source, so if you disagree with one you can go and see where it came from.
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Q 01Who was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, a foundational document of the United States. He was chosen by the Committee of Five to draft the document, which was then edited by the committee and the Continental Congress.
Q 02Which two Massachusetts towns were the site of the 'shot heard round the world'?
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, are famously known as the location of the 'shot heard round the world' and marked the outbreak of armed conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies.
Q 03What document formally ended the American Revolutionary War in 1783?
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, officially ended the War of American Independence and recognized the United States as a free, sovereign, and independent nation.
Q 04Which British act imposed a direct tax on printed materials in the American colonies?
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 required that newspapers, legal documents and even playing cards be produced on stamped paper from London, fuelling 'no taxation without representation'.
Q 05Who served as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution?
George Washington
George Washington was appointed by the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and led the American forces throughout the war.
Q 06Where did the Continental Army endure a harsh winter encampment from December 1777 to June 1778?
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania lay 18 miles northwest of British-held Philadelphia; the winter was not unusually cold, but supply failures let starvation and disease kill nearly 2,000 of Washington's 12,000 men.
Q 07What final appeal for peace was sent to King George III by the Second Continental Congress in July 1775?
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition, adopted on July 5, 1775, affirmed loyalty to the crown and asked the king to intervene; George III refused to read it.
Q 08Which European country formally allied with the American colonies in 1778?
France
France became the United States' first and most important formal ally in 1778, providing vital military aid, including a navy, soldiers, supplies, and financial assistance that significantly contributed to the American victory.
Q 09What were the German mercenaries hired by the British in the American Revolution commonly called?
Hessians
Hessians took their name from Hesse-Kassel, the state most of the roughly 30,000 German soldiers came from.
Q 10Which Mohawk leader allied with the British and raided the New York frontier in the Revolution?
Joseph Brant
Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) was a Mohawk leader and warrior who allied with the British during the American Revolution, playing a significant role in the conflict on the New York frontier.
Q 11At which battle did John Burgoyne surrender in October 1777, convincing France that American independence was viable?
Saratoga
Saratoga ended Burgoyne's push south from Canada toward Albany, cut off and outnumbered by Horatio Gates; the win turned the war into a global conflict with European allies.
Q 12On which lower Charlestown hill, not the one the battle is named for, did Prescott's men build their redoubt in 1775?
Breed's Hill
Prescott's men fortified Breed's Hill, the lower rise closer to Boston, overnight on June 16, 1775; the British took it on June 17 only after two bloody repulses.
Q 13In which month was Thomas Paine's Common Sense published anonymously?
January 1776
Q 21At which Virginia town did Cornwallis surrender on October 19, 1781?
Yorktown
Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, but skipped the ceremony claiming illness and sent Charles O'Hara; Washington insisted the French share equally in every step of the surrender.
Q 22Which 1774 laws answered the Boston Tea Party by closing Boston's port?
Intolerable Acts
Britain called them the Coercive Acts. Instead of isolating Boston they united the colonies, prompting the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
Q 23At which 1778 battle did 'Molly Pitcher' Mary Ludwig Hays take her fallen husband's place at a cannon?
Monmouth
Common Sense appeared anonymously in Philadelphia in January 1776 (on the 10th) and sold in huge numbers; Paine argued in plain language that a continent should not be ruled by an island.
Q 14Benedict Arnold's plan to betray which fort to the British collapsed when John André was captured?
West Point
Arnold had been given command of the Hudson River stronghold in 1780. André was hanged as a spy while Arnold escaped to a British commission.
Q 15On July 31, 1777, Congress commissioned the teenage Marquis de Lafayette at which rank?
Major general
Congress made the 19-year-old Lafayette a major general on July 31, 1777, a commission arranged through Silas Deane in Paris; he later led the Franco-American force that pinned Cornwallis in Virginia.
Q 16Which American commander nearly wiped out Tarleton's British Legion at Cowpens on January 17, 1781?
Daniel Morgan
Daniel Morgan used his militia as bait at Cowpens, ordering two volleys and a withdrawal before his regulars and cavalry closed the trap; the battle became a textbook double envelopment.
Q 17Which British frigate did John Paul Jones fight in 1779, supposedly saying 'I have not yet begun to fight'?
HMS Serapis
Jones lashed Bonhomme Richard to HMS Serapis off Flamborough Head on September 23, 1779, because he could not win a gunnery duel; his own ship sank two days later, so he sailed away in the captured Serapis.
Q 18Which Prussian veteran retrained the Continental Army in 1778 and wrote its drill manual?
Baron von Steuben
Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in February 1778 and drilled a model company that then taught the other units; his 'Blue Book' regulations became the army's drill manual.
Q 19Which city's fall in May 1780, with over 5,000 captured, was the war's worst Patriot defeat?
Charleston
Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston and the entire southern Continental Army on May 12, 1780; the disaster opened the Carolinas to Cornwallis's campaign.
Q 20Horatio Gates was routed on August 16, 1780, at which South Carolina battle?
Camden
Gates fled the field on horseback and covered about 180 miles in three days. The defeat ended his field career and handed the southern command to Nathanael Greene.
She had followed the army as a water carrier, which is where the nickname comes from. Washington is said to have commended her afterward.
Q 24Henry Knox hauled heavy artillery to Boston in March 1776 that had been captured where?
Fort Ticonderoga
Knox dragged roughly 60 tons of guns captured at Fort Ticonderoga some 300 miles over frozen rivers and mountains in midwinter; once mounted on Dorchester Heights they forced the British to evacuate Boston.
Q 25In August 1776 William Howe outflanked the Americans and pushed them back to Brooklyn Heights in the Battle of what?
Long Island
It was the largest battle of the whole war by numbers engaged. Howe did not press the encirclement, and the Americans slipped across the East River at night in a fog.
Q 26Where was the October 1780 Patriot victory that crippled Loyalist militia in the South?
Kings Mountain
At Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780, frontier 'Overmountain Men' surrounded Patrick Ferguson's Loyalists on the wooded ridge and killed Ferguson himself; almost every man on the British side was American-born.
Q 27Which future president defended the British soldiers charged with murder after the Boston Massacre?
John Adams
Most of the soldiers were acquitted, and Adams later called his unpopular defense one of the best services he ever rendered his country.
Q 28Roughly how many chests of tea did the Sons of Liberty dump into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773?
About 340
They smashed 342 chests, about 340 in round numbers, over three hours of emptying the three ships; a smaller repeat raid in March 1774 dumped a further cargo of around 30 chests.
Q 29What was Paul Revere's trade before his famous midnight ride made him a legend?
Silversmith
Silversmith Revere also produced the engraving of the Boston Massacre that became one of the most effective pieces of Patriot propaganda.
Q 30Washington's 1776 Christmas-night crossing of the Delaware set up an attack on which New Jersey town?
Trenton
The garrison commander had spent Christmas evening celebrating at a merchant's farm and reportedly ignored a warning note.