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46 free Anniversary trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free anniversary trivia questions with answers. Whether you are planning a golden anniversary party, a vow renewal or a quiz round for a couple who have made it another year, this anniversary trivia set covers the ground. It asks about the traditional gift for each milestone (paper, wood, tin, silver, ruby, gold, diamond, platinum), where those customs came from, who sends congratulations at 50 and 60 years, the longest marriages on record, the origin of the honeymoon and the royal jubilees that gave the milestones their names. The easy questions ask what a golden anniversary marks and what the traditional first-anniversary gift is. The hard ones want the year the American jewellers' association expanded the gift list, the queen who invited fifty kings to her jubilee banquet, the pudding chosen for the Platinum Jubilee and the mineral rubies and sapphires share. Written for anniversary parties, wedding showers and family celebrations. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on anniversaries, jubilees, marriage and the gemstones, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A golden wedding anniversary marks how many years of marriage?
50
Linking gold and silver to anniversaries has been documented in Germanic countries since the 1500s.
Q 02Which anniversary is traditionally marked with silver?
25th
Silver marks the 25th anniversary, the quarter-century; husbands traditionally crowned their wives with a silver wreath at that point, one of the oldest anniversary associations.
Q 03A ruby anniversary celebrates how many years?
40
A ruby anniversary marks 40 years of marriage; the stone's red colour comes from traces of chromium in the crystal.
Q 04A diamond wedding anniversary traditionally marks how many years?
60
A diamond wedding anniversary marks 60 years of marriage; Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip reached theirs in November 2007, sixty years after their 1947 wedding.
Q 05Which metal is associated with a 70th anniversary?
Platinum
Platinum is the metal of the 70th anniversary; rarer and denser than gold, it was chosen to stand for the rarity of a seventy-year marriage.
Q 06What is the traditional gift for a first wedding anniversary?
Paper
Paper is the traditional first-anniversary gift; the flimsy material stands for the fragile, still-new bond of a first year, and modern lists add a clock.
Q 07What is the traditional gift for a fifth anniversary?
Wood
Wood is the traditional fifth-anniversary gift, symbolising a marriage that has taken root and grown strong; the modern American list gives silverware for the fifth.
Q 08What is the traditional gift for a tenth anniversary?
Tin
The list was extended in the early 1900s with straw for the second and candy for the third.
Q 09By the early 1900s, which material was suggested for the twentieth anniversary?
China
China was the material suggested for the twentieth anniversary; the early twentieth-century American gift lists added porcelain at twenty to the older silver and gold tradition.
Q 10Which anniversary was assigned crystal in the early twentieth-century lists?
15th
Crystal was assigned to the 15th anniversary on the early twentieth-century American lists, a fragile but clear material marking a marriage well past its first decade.
Q 11In what year did the American National Retail Jeweler Association expand the anniversary gift list?
1937
In 1937 the American National Retail Jeweler Association issued an expanded list giving a gift for every year up to the 20th anniversary and for every fifth year after that.
Q 12Gold and silver wedding anniversaries have been documented since the 1500s in which part of Europe?
The Germanic lands
The Germanic lands started it; in English-speaking countries the gift tradition only became common in the 19th century.
Q 13Whose 1922 etiquette book listed gifts for anniversaries at 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 and 75 years?
Emily Post
Q 21Which British king celebrated his golden jubilee a year early, in 1809?
George III
George III held his jubilee on 25 October 1809, the day he entered the fiftieth year of his reign; he died in January 1820, nine months short of sixty years.
Q 22Queen Elizabeth II's 2022 Jubilee marked how many years on the throne?
70
70 years: Elizabeth II acceded on 6 February 1952, so the Platinum Jubilee of 2022 marked seven decades on the throne, the first for any British monarch.
Q 23What dessert won the official pudding competition for the 2022 Jubilee?
A lemon Swiss roll trifle
Jemma Melvin's lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle won the Platinum Pudding competition, chosen from around 5,000 entries as the official dessert of the 2022 Jubilee.
Emily Post's 1922 book Etiquette listed the eight traditional anniversary gifts, from paper at one year to gold at fifty; later editions filled in the other years.
Q 14In the Commonwealth realms, from which anniversary can a couple first receive a message from the monarch?
60th
A couple can first receive the monarch's message at their 60th anniversary; messages also go out for the 65th, 70th and every year after that.
Q 15In the United States, a couple can receive a card from whom for their 50th anniversary?
The president
The president sends it: the White House Greetings Office mails a card to American couples celebrating a 50th or later anniversary, on request.
Q 16Catholics can apply for what through their diocese for a special anniversary?
A papal blessing
A papal blessing: the Apostolic Blessing parchment can be requested for a 25th, 50th or 60th wedding anniversary and is issued by the Office of Papal Charities.
Q 17Which gemstone is the traditional gift for a 55th wedding anniversary?
Emerald
Emerald is the traditional 55th-anniversary gem; the green stone sits five years short of the diamond at sixty on the traditional list.
Q 18The word 'jubilee' comes from the Hebrew name for what object?
A ram's horn
A ram's horn: 'jubilee' descends from Hebrew yovel, the ram's-horn trumpet blown to proclaim the biblical Jubilee year.
Q 19A diamond jubilee usually marks 60 years but is also used for which other anniversary?
75th
A diamond jubilee also marks a 75th anniversary; Emily Post's 1922 list put diamond at seventy-five years, and institutions use the 75-year sense far more often than couples do.
Q 20How many European kings and princes were invited to Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee banquet in 1887?
50
The number matched the years of her reign.
Q 24What is the biblical Jubilee, described in Leviticus?
A fiftieth year of release and land return
It followed seven cycles of sabbatical years.
Q 25Operation Sail and the American Freedom Train celebrated which US milestone?
200 years of independence in 1976
Both marked the Bicentennial, 200 years of independence in 1976: the Freedom Train toured the 48 contiguous states from 1975 to 1976, and tall ships paraded into New York Harbor on 4 July 1976.
Q 26Which material marks a 90th wedding anniversary?
Granite
Granite marks a 90th anniversary; Karam and Kartari Chand of Bradford, married in India in 1925, passed that mark in 2015 in the longest reported marriage.
Q 27Which material is the traditional gift for an 80th wedding anniversary?
Oak
Oak is the 80th-anniversary material on the traditional list, the hardwood chosen for the strength and endurance of an eighty-year marriage.
Q 28The modern honeymoon developed from which upper-class custom in early 19th-century Britain?
The bridal tour to visit relatives
The bridal tour: early 19th-century upper-class British couples toured to visit relatives who had missed the wedding, a custom the French copied from the 1820s as the voyage à la façon anglaise.
Q 29The word 'honeymoon' has been attested since which year?
1546
1546: the earliest record is John Heywood's book of proverbs from that year; the word hinted that love, like a moon, would wane after the first sweet month.
Q 30The diamond eternity ring was invented as a marketing idea in the 1960s by which company?
De Beers
De Beers devised the diamond eternity ring in the 1960s as a way to sell the small Siberian stones it was obliged to buy from the Soviet Union under a supply deal.