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98 free George Washington trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
62 free George Washington trivia questions with answers. George Washington led the Continental Army to victory, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and set the standard for the American presidency. From cherry tree myths to his whiskey distillery, test how much you really know about the Father of His Country.
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Q 01What was George Washington's role during the Constitutional Convention of 1787?
Presiding officer
Washington was unanimously elected presiding officer on May 25, 1787, nominated by Pennsylvania's Robert Morris; his prestige lent the proceedings weight and eased ratification.
Q 02Before becoming president, what was Washington's primary occupation at Mount Vernon?
Planter and farmer
Washington was primarily a planter and farmer at Mount Vernon, which he ran from 1754 until his death in 1799, keeping detailed diaries of weather, crops and his experiments with rotation and manuring.
Q 03Which engagement is considered George Washington's first major victory of the Revolutionary War?
Trenton
After the icy river crossing on Christmas night 1776, Washington's men surprised the Hessian garrison and captured almost two-thirds of it with minimal losses, reviving morale and re-enlistments.
Q 04How many terms did George Washington serve as president?
Two
Washington served two terms as president (1789-1797) and voluntarily stepped down, establishing the precedent of a two-term limit that lasted until FDR.
Q 05In which colony was George Washington born?
Virginia
Virginia: Washington was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County on Virginia's Northern Neck, the first child of planter Augustine Washington's second marriage.
Q 06What were Washington's dentures actually made of?
Ivory and human teeth
Washington lost all but one of his own teeth. His dentures combined metal, ivory, bone, animal teeth, and human teeth, some possibly obtained from enslaved people; none were wooden.
Q 07Who did George Washington marry in 1759?
Martha Dandridge Custis
Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow with two children, on January 6, 1759. Their marriage lasted 40 years until his death.
Q 08What did Washington famously cross on Christmas night, 1776?
The Delaware
Two detachments failed to get across the ice-choked river, leaving Washington just 2,400 men for the pre-dawn surprise attack on the Hessian garrison in New Jersey on December 26, 1776.
Q 09What key warning did Washington include in his Farewell Address of 1796?
Partisanship and foreign influence
Washington warned that regionalism, partisanship, and foreign influence threatened national unity. The address was first printed in a Philadelphia newspaper on September 19, 1796, not delivered as a speech.
Q 10Which battle effectively ended the Revolutionary War with Cornwallis's surrender?
Siege of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown in 1781, where Washington's forces and French allies trapped Cornwallis's army, resulted in the British surrender that effectively ended the Revolutionary War.
Q 11What title did Washington insist on using in office, rejecting more grandiose alternatives?
Mr. President
While the Senate debated titles like "His Highness" or "His Excellency," Washington preferred the simple "Mr. President," setting a precedent for republican simplicity in the office.
Q 12In what year was George Washington unanimously elected as the first president?
1789
Washington was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in 1789, the only president to receive every electoral vote. He was inaugurated on April 30, 1789.
Q 13Baron von Steuben, who drilled Washington's army into shape in 1778, was an officer from which European state?
Prussia
Q 21What was the harsh winter encampment of 1777-1778 where Washington's army endured severe hardship?
Valley Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the Continental Army's brutal winter camp of 1777-78, where disease, cold and hunger ravaged the troops; the army emerged stronger after Steuben's training that spring.
Q 22How many children did George and Martha Washington have together?
None
The couple never had children of their own; his 1751 bout of smallpox may have left him sterile. They raised Martha's two children from her first marriage and later two of her grandchildren.
Q 23What did Washington issue in April 1793 to keep the U.S. out of the war between France and Britain?
The Proclamation of Neutrality
Prussia: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a former captain in the Prussian army, joined the Continental Army's winter camp in February 1778 and drilled it into a disciplined, professional force.
Q 14Where was George Washington inaugurated as the first president?
New York City
New York City, then the capital: Washington took the oath on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street on April 30, 1789, then read his inaugural address in the Senate Chamber.
Q 15What young military assignment first brought Washington into conflict with French forces in the 1750s?
The Ohio Valley expedition
The Ohio Valley expedition: in 1754 Lieutenant Colonel Washington led Virginia militia toward the forks of the Ohio, where a May ambush of a French party and a July surrender helped trigger the French and Indian War.
Q 16Washington's Potomac estate was renamed Mount Vernon by his half-brother in honor of whom?
A British vice admiral
Lawrence Washington had served under Vice Admiral Edward Vernon in the War of Jenkins' Ear and renamed the plantation, until then Little Hunting Creek, after his old commander. George kept the name.
Q 17Who served as Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton served as the first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795, establishing the national bank, federal tax system, and the foundation of American financial policy.
Q 18Who served as Washington's first Secretary of State?
Thomas Jefferson
The feud between the nation's first Secretary of State and its first Treasury Secretary gave birth to America's first political parties; Thomas Jefferson resigned on July 31, 1793.
Q 19How did George Washington die in December 1799?
A throat infection
He woke on December 14, 1799 with an inflamed throat and could barely breathe. Doctors bled roughly five pints from him and dosed him with calomel; modern physicians think severe epiglottitis plus the treatment killed him.
Q 20What domestic uprising in 1794 did Washington personally lead troops to suppress?
The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 erupted in western Pennsylvania over a federal excise tax on distilled spirits. Washington led 13,000 militia to quell the uprising, marking the first time a sitting president commanded troops in the field.
Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 declared that the United States would remain impartial in the conflict between France and Great Britain, establishing an early precedent for American non-interventionism.
Q 24Whose 1800 life of Washington launched legends like the boy and the hatchet?
Mason Locke Weems
Parson Weems's hagiography went through many reprints and made him rich enough to regret selling its copyright for $1,000 in 1808. Henry Cabot Lodge later called its anecdotes 'hopelessly and ridiculously false.'
Q 25What rank did the Continental Congress give Washington when he took command of the army in 1775?
Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief: Congress unanimously elected Washington 'General and Commander in Chief' on June 15, 1775, on Thomas Johnson's nomination after John Adams proposed him; he served the war without pay beyond expenses.
Q 26Which 1794 agreement, negotiated by the Chief Justice, resolved issues with Britain and averted a second war?
Jay Treaty
The Jay Treaty of 1794, negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay, addressed British occupation of western forts and trade disputes. It was deeply controversial but helped avoid a second war with Britain.
Q 27How tall was George Washington, making him notably tall for his era?
6'2"
Contemporary accounts put him somewhere between 6 feet and 6 feet 3.5 inches, well above most men of his day. One contemporary called him 'the best horseman of his age.'
Q 28What did Washington's will stipulate regarding the enslaved people at Mount Vernon?
Freed on Martha's death
Freed on Martha's death: the will freed the people Washington personally owned upon her death, one valet at once; the dower slaves belonged to the Custis estate and were not his to free. Martha freed them on January 1, 1801.
Q 29Which early profession did Washington pursue as a teenager before his military career?
Land surveyor
Land surveyor: Washington got a surveyor's license from the College of William & Mary in 1749 and took his first county surveyor post at 17; by 1752 he had bought almost 1,500 acres in the Shenandoah Valley.
Q 30Which French general marched 5,000 troops with Washington to trap Cornwallis in 1781?
Comte de Rochambeau
Rochambeau landed at Newport with 5,000 veteran troops in 1780 and talked Washington out of attacking New York in favor of Virginia. New to siege warfare, Washington often deferred to him, yet Rochambeau never challenged his command.