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70 free Barack Obama trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Barack Obama's story is unusually easy to turn into good trivia because so much of it is unexpected: a boy nicknamed Barry who spoke fluent Indonesian, a Columbia graduate who took a job organizing tenants in a Chicago housing project, the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review, a state senator who lost a congressional primary in 2000 and was president eight years later. This President Obama trivia quiz runs 70 questions across his whole life: family and schooling, the community-organizer and law-professor years, the 2004 keynote that made him famous, both elections, the big first-term laws, the bin Laden raid, Bo and Sunny, his Supreme Court picks, the Cuba and Iran deals, and the post-presidency of memoirs, Grammys, an Emmy and a Netflix production company. Early questions are easy; the last third will test genuine political junkies. Every answer is verified against Wikipedia's biography of Obama or the dedicated article on that event, with the exact supporting sentence quoted under each question.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Barack Obama born?
Honolulu
He was born at Kapiolani Medical Center on August 4, 1961, two years after Hawaii became a state.
Q 02In which year was he born?
1961
He is the first president born outside the contiguous 48 states.
Q 03His mother, Ann Dunham, was born in which state?
Kansas
Dunham later became an anthropologist specializing in Indonesian village crafts and microfinance.
Q 04His father was a citizen of which African country?
Kenya
Barack Obama Sr. was a Luo from Nyang'oma Kogelo who came to Hawaii on a scholarship and later worked as an economist.
Q 05After his parents divorced, how often did his father visit him in Hawaii?
Once, at Christmas 1971
That month-long visit is the only memory Obama has of his father, who died in a car accident in Kenya in 1982.
Q 06At age six he moved with his mother and stepfather to which country?
Indonesia
He spoke the language fluently as a child and attended both a Catholic and a public school in Jakarta.
Q 07Under what nickname was he registered at school as a boy?
Barry
He kept the nickname through high school and dropped it in college, asking friends to use his full name.
Q 08From 1971 he lived back in Hawaii with which relatives?
His maternal grandparents
Madelyn Dunham, a bank vice president he called 'Toot', died two days before he was elected president.
Q 09Which private Hawaiian academy did he attend on a scholarship from fifth grade until graduating in 1979?
Punahou School
He played on the school's varsity basketball team, which won the state championship in his senior year.
Q 10Where did he begin his undergraduate studies in 1979, on a full scholarship in Los Angeles?
Occidental College
He spent two years there before transferring east.
Q 11His first public speech, in February 1981, called for his college to do what?
Divest from South Africa
The anti-apartheid rally speech is recounted in his memoir; he was pulled offstage mid-sentence as a piece of theater.
Q 12Where did he earn his 1983 bachelor's degree in political science?
Columbia University
He specialized in international relations and wrote his thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament.
Q 13From 1985 to 1988 he worked in Chicago in what job?
Community organizer
He was paid about $13,000 a year by a church-based group working in the Roseland and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods.
Q 21What is the given first name of his younger daughter, known as Sasha?
Natasha
Malia Ann was born in 1998; both girls were school-age when the family moved into the White House.
Q 22He was first elected to public office in 1996, winning a seat in which body?
The Illinois State Senate
He got on the ballot by successfully challenging the petition signatures of every rival, including the incumbent.
Q 23In 2000 he lost a Democratic primary for the US House to which incumbent?
Bobby Rush
Rush, a former Black Panther, beat him by more than 30 points; it remains Obama's only electoral defeat.
Q 14In which Chicago public-housing development did he help set up job training and tenants' rights programs?
Altgeld Gardens
The far-South Side project sits beside landfills, and asbestos removal there was one of his first organizing wins.
Q 15He gained national attention in 1990 as the first Black president of what?
The Harvard Law Review
The publicity led to a book contract, which eventually became his 1995 memoir.
Q 16In which year did he graduate from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude?
1991
He turned down big-firm offers to return to Chicago and run a voter-registration drive.
Q 17What subject did he teach at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years?
Constitutional law
He was a lecturer and then senior lecturer, never a tenured professor, though the school said he was offered a full-time post.
Q 18In 1992 he directed Illinois's Project Vote, which registered how many new African American voters?
150,000
The drive helped Carol Moseley Braun become the first Black woman elected to the US Senate that November.
Q 19At which law firm did he meet Michelle Robinson in 1989?
Sidley Austin
He was a summer associate and she was assigned to mentor him; their first date included the movie Do the Right Thing.
Q 20In which year did Barack and Michelle marry?
1992
The wedding was at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side, with Jeremiah Wright officiating.
Q 24In which city did he give the 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote that made his name?
Boston
He was still a state senator at the time, running for the US Senate; the speech was given at the FleetCenter.
Q 25Which word fills the blanks in 'there is not a liberal ___ and a conservative ___ — there is the United States of ___'?
America
He went on to reject the idea of a Black, white, Latino and Asian America, a theme he returned to in his farewell address twelve years later.
Q 26Who was his main rival in the 2008 Democratic primary?
Hillary Clinton
The contest ran into June; he later made her his first Secretary of State.
Q 27Whom did he defeat in the November 2008 general election?
John McCain
McCain's running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, became a national figure overnight.
Q 28How many electoral votes did he win in 2008?
365
He carried Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina, states no Democrat had won since the 1960s or 1970s.
Q 29What share of the popular vote did he win in 2008?
52.9%
It was the largest share for any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Q 30Who administered the oath of office at his first inauguration in January 2009?
Chief Justice John Roberts
Roberts flubbed the wording, so the two redid the oath privately in the White House the next day.