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50 free Franklin D. Roosevelt trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Franklin D. Roosevelt trivia quiz covers the only president elected four times, from a cosseted Hyde Park childhood and a Harvard newspaper editorship to the New York State Senate, the Navy Department, the polio that paralysed him at 39, and the comeback that carried him to Albany and then the White House. It then works through the Hundred Days, the alphabet agencies, the 1936 landslide, the court-packing fight, Pearl Harbor, the wartime conferences and his death at Warm Springs three weeks before Germany surrendered. The easy questions are ones most people know: which number president, which war, which famous phrase. The medium ones ask about his cabinet firsts, the New Deal programmes that survive today, his running mates and the assassination attempt in Miami. The hard ones dig into Tammany Hall, the Taconic parkway feud with Robert Moses, Executive Order 6102, the 1944 tax rates and why he is on the dime. It works for a US history class, a Presidents' Day round or anyone who wants to go deeper than the Theodore Roosevelt quiz elsewhere on BrainPickle. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Franklin D. Roosevelt was which number president of the United States?
32nd
He served from 1933 until his death in 1945, longer than anyone before or since.
Q 02How many times was Roosevelt elected president?
Four
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, made sure nobody could do it again.
Q 03In which New York town was Roosevelt born and later buried?
Hyde Park
His Springwood estate there is now a National Historic Site and home to his presidential library.
Q 04Roosevelt's parents were related to each other in what way?
Sixth cousins
Franklin later married another distant cousin, Eleanor, a fifth cousin once removed.
Q 05Which student newspaper did Roosevelt edit as an undergraduate?
The Harvard Crimson
He was otherwise an undistinguished student and never got over being rejected by the Porcellian Club.
Q 06Who gave away the bride at Franklin and Eleanor's 1905 wedding?
Theodore Roosevelt
Eleanor's father Elliott had died, so her uncle, the sitting president, stepped in.
Q 07How many children did Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt have?
Six
One son, the first Franklin, died in infancy; another son was later given the same name.
Q 08Eleanor's social secretary, with whom Roosevelt began an affair in 1914, was named what?
Lucy Mercer
He promised never to see her again in 1918, then resumed contact by 1941; she was with him in Georgia when he died.
Q 09Roosevelt began his political career in 1910 by winning election to which body?
New York State Senate
He campaigned by automobile at a time when few people could afford one, and won a strongly Republican district.
Q 10As a state senator, Roosevelt led the 'Insurgents' against which political machine?
Tammany Hall
He later made peace with its boss Charles Francis Murphy after losing a 1914 Senate primary to a Tammany candidate.
Q 11Under President Wilson, Roosevelt held which post from 1913 to 1920?
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
His cousin Theodore had held exactly the same job before the Spanish-American War.
Q 12Roosevelt was the vice-presidential running mate of which Democratic nominee in 1920?
James M. Cox
The Cox-Roosevelt ticket lost heavily to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Q 13Before the 1920 ticket, Roosevelt approached which businessman about running for president as a Democrat?
Herbert Hoover
Hoover declared himself a Republican instead, and Roosevelt beat him in a landslide twelve years later.
Q 21Who was Roosevelt's running mate in 1932 and 1936?
John Nance Garner
Garner turned against the New Deal in the second term and challenged Roosevelt for the 1940 nomination.
Q 22Who became the first woman to hold a US cabinet post when Roosevelt named her Secretary of Labor?
Frances Perkins
She stayed in the job for his entire presidency.
Q 23Who was killed in the February 1933 assassination attempt on president-elect Roosevelt in Florida?
Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak
A woman struck the gunman, Giuseppe Zangara, with her handbag as he fired five shots.
Q 14Where was Roosevelt on holiday in August 1921 when he fell ill with the disease that paralysed his legs?
Campobello Island
A 2003 study suggested Guillain-Barré syndrome rather than polio, but historians still use the original diagnosis.
Q 15In which Georgia town did Roosevelt spend most of his inheritance on a polio rehabilitation centre?
Warm Springs
He died there in 1945 at the cottage known as the Little White House.
Q 16What was the name of the houseboat on which Roosevelt spent much of his time in the mid-1920s?
Larooco
Its name was a mash-up of Lawrence, Roosevelt and Company, after the friend who co-owned it.
Q 17Roosevelt clashed with which powerful planner while chairing the Taconic State Park Commission?
Robert Moses
The two men's contentious relationship continued for the rest of their careers.
Q 18By what margin was Roosevelt elected governor of New York in 1928?
Less than one percent
He squeaked in the same year Al Smith lost the presidency in a landslide.
Q 19What did Roosevelt call the radio addresses he began giving as governor and continued as president?
Fireside chats
He gave 30 of them as president, explaining policy directly to listeners at home.
Q 20Roosevelt broke tradition in 1932 by doing what after winning the Democratic nomination?
Flying to Chicago to accept it in person
The trip was meant to show he was vigorous despite his disability.
Q 24What did Roosevelt declare on his second day in office to stop runs on the banks?
A four-day national bank holiday
When banks reopened on March 15, stock prices rose 15 percent and over $1 billion flowed back into vaults.
Q 25Which act, signed by Roosevelt on March 22, 1933, ended Prohibition?
Cullen-Harrison Act
It legalised beer and wine before the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition entirely that December.
Q 26Which New Deal agency, Roosevelt's favourite, hired 250,000 unemployed men for rural projects?
Civilian Conservation Corps
Its enrollees eventually planted two billion trees and built 13,000 miles of trails.
Q 27Executive Order 6102 required American citizens to sell what to the US Treasury?
Privately held gold
The official price was then raised from $20 to $35 an ounce, and the order still angers gold investors.
Q 28Which New Deal act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation?
Glass-Steagall Act
The same law limited ties between commercial banks and securities firms.
Q 29Roosevelt insisted Social Security be funded by payroll taxes so no politician could ever do what?
Scrap the programme
His view was that contributors would gain a legal, moral and political right to their pensions.
Q 30Which New Deal agency, led by Harry Hopkins, employed over three million people in its first year?
Works Progress Administration
It also set up the National Youth Administration and arts programmes for writers, actors and painters.