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50 free Columbus Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Columbus Day trivia quiz covers both the holiday and the history it commemorates. The holiday rounds trace the first celebration by New York's Tammany Society in 1792, Colorado's pioneering state holiday, Benjamin Harrison's one-time 1892 proclamation after the New Orleans lynchings, the 1968 law that fixed the second Monday in October, and the growing list of states and cities that now mark Indigenous Peoples' Day instead. Latin America's Día de la Raza, Spain's Fiesta Nacional and Italy's Giornata Nazionale get their turn too. The voyage rounds go back to 1492: the Niña, Pinta and Santa María, the lookout who first saw land, the grounding on Christmas Day, La Navidad, and the chains, lawsuits and Jamaican eclipse of Columbus's later years. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did Columbus name the island its inhabitants called Guanahaní?
San Salvador
The name means 'Holy Savior'; the island lies in the Bahamas.
Q 02Since 1971, on which Monday of October has the US federal holiday fallen?
Second
That puts it on the same day as Canadian Thanksgiving.
Q 03Which New York group held the first Columbus Day celebration in 1792?
Tammany Society
Also called the Columbian Order, it was the precursor to Tammany Hall; the event marked the landing's 300th anniversary.
Q 04Which city's Columbus Obelisk was erected in 1792?
Baltimore
It went up the same year Tammany held the first celebration in New York.
Q 05Which Denver lobbyist got Columbus Day enshrined as the first state legal holiday?
Angelo Noce
Colorado's governor proclaimed the first statewide holiday in 1905, and it became statutory in 1907.
Q 06Which holiday replaced Columbus Day in Colorado in 2020?
Frances Xavier Cabrini Day
The replacement is observed a week earlier than the old holiday.
Q 07Which president declared a one-time national Columbus Day celebration in 1892?
Benjamin Harrison
It came after a mob lynched 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans, and aimed to ease tensions with Italy.
Q 08How many Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans before the 1892 proclamation?
11
The proclamation was part of a wider effort to placate Italian Americans after the killings.
Q 09Which text, written by Francis Bellamy, was part of the 1892 anniversary rituals?
Pledge of Allegiance
Teachers and preachers used the 400th-anniversary events to teach ideals of patriotism.
Q 10Which organization lobbied Congress for the 1934 statute requesting an annual proclamation?
Knights of Columbus
New York Italian leader Generoso Pope also pushed for it, and Franklin Roosevelt issued the proclamation.
Q 11Who founded the National Columbus Day Committee in Buffalo in 1966?
Mariano A. Lucca
Its lobbying led to the federal holiday law signed two years later.
Q 12Which president signed the law making Columbus Day a federal holiday?
Lyndon Johnson
He signed it on June 28, 1968, effective from 1971.
Q 13Which Canadian holiday coincides with US Columbus Day?
Thanksgiving
Both fall on the second Monday in October.
Q 14Which US service branch marks its birthday on October 13, adjoining the holiday?
Q 21Which Ohio state capital dropped the holiday in 2018 to honour veterans instead?
Columbus
Akron, Ohio, reached a compromise by adding North American First People's Day on the first Monday of October.
Q 22What is the most common Spanish name for the October 12 celebration?
Día de la Raza
It translates as 'day of the race' and was first celebrated in Argentina in 1917.
Q 23What did Mexico rename October 12 in 2020?
Day of the Pluricultural Nation
President López Obrador also had the Columbus statue on Paseo de la Reforma replaced by an Indigenous woman sculpture.
Navy
Founded in 1775, it customarily grants a 72- or 96-hour liberty period covering both occasions.
Q 15Which city claims the nation's oldest continuous Columbus Day parade, started in 1868?
San Francisco
Nicola Larco established it; New York boasts the largest parade, with over 35,000 marchers.
Q 16In the US Virgin Islands, the day doubles as a friendship day with which territory?
Puerto Rico
It is also a legal holiday in Puerto Rico itself.
Q 17Which other legal holiday does Virginia mark on the same day?
Yorktown Victory Day
It honours the final victory at the Siege of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War.
Q 18What does Hawaii call its replacement holiday?
Discoverers' Day
South Dakota calls its version Native American Day.
Q 19Which state skips the holiday because its own statehood day falls too close?
Nevada
Its governor is still 'authorized and requested' by statute to proclaim the day each year.
Q 20Which city began the practice of celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day instead, in 1992?
Berkeley
Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and dozens of others followed by 2018.
Q 24Which country has marked Día de la Resistencia Indígena since 2002?
Venezuela
Under Hugo Chávez the holiday was reframed; a Columbus statue in Caracas was toppled two years later.
Q 25Which country's October 12 holiday is also its Fiesta Nacional?
Spain
It coincides with the feast of La Virgen del Pilar, and a 1981 royal decree made it a national holiday.
Q 26Which Spanish city designated the Virgen del Pilar a symbol of Hispanidad in 1642?
Zaragoza
The feast was declared throughout the Spanish Empire in 1730.
Q 27Which country adopted Día del Encuentro de las Culturas in 1994, then scrapped the holiday in 2020?
Costa Rica
The holiday was dropped in 2020 in favour of Military Abolition Day on December 1.
Q 28What did Belize rename October 12 in 2021?
Indigenous Peoples' Resistance Day
The old name, Pan American Day, was dropped in 2021 to move away from its colonial legacy.
Q 29Which Caribbean country replaced Discovery Day with National Heroes Day in 2001?
The Bahamas
It was there, on Guanahaní, that the 1492 landing took place.
Q 30In which year was Italy's Giornata Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo introduced?
2004
It is a celebratory day rather than a public holiday in Italy.