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50 free Gerald Ford trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Gerald Ford never won a national election, yet he served as both vice president and president. He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, became an Eagle Scout, played centre on two undefeated Michigan teams, turned down the Lions and the Packers, worked as a model and spent 25 years in the House dreaming of being Speaker. Then Spiro Agnew resigned, Watergate consumed Nixon, and within ten months Ford was in the Oval Office telling the country its long national nightmare was over. These 50 questions cover the pardon that probably cost him the 1976 election, the Whip Inflation Now buttons, the fall of Saigon, the Mayaguez rescue, two assassination attempts in seventeen days, the Helsinki Accords, the swine-flu vaccine, the Chevy Chase pratfalls, and the blunder about Eastern Europe in the second debate. The set moves from basics anyone remembers to details for real presidential buffs: his jersey number, his ship, his autobiography and the Supreme Court case he carried in his wallet.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Gerald Ford was which number president of the United States?
38th
He took over in August 1974 after Nixon resigned.
Q 02What name was Ford given at birth?
Leslie Lynch King Jr.
He was renamed for his stepfather; the change was formalised in 1935 with the spelling 'Rudolph'.
Q 03In which city was Ford born?
Omaha, Nebraska
His parents separated just sixteen days after his birth and his mother took him to Michigan.
Q 04Ford is the only president to have earned which Boy Scout rank?
Eagle
About 400 Eagle Scouts formed an honour guard at his 2007 funeral procession.
Q 05Ford played center and linebacker for which college football team?
Michigan Wolverines
The team won national titles in 1932 and 1933, and his teammates voted him MVP in the dismal 1934 season.
Q 06Which jersey number did the University of Michigan retire in Ford's honour in 1994?
48
It was put back into circulation in 2012 as part of the Michigan Football Legends program.
Q 07Ford turned down NFL offers from the Green Bay Packers and which other team?
Detroit Lions
He went to Yale instead as boxing coach and assistant football coach.
Q 08Where did Ford earn his law degree in 1941?
Yale Law School
Yale first refused him because of his full-time coaching duties.
Q 09Ford served aboard which light aircraft carrier in the Pacific?
USS Monterey
He was assistant navigator, athletic officer and antiaircraft battery officer.
Q 10Which December 1944 storm damaged Ford's ship and sank three destroyers?
Typhoon Cobra
Aircraft tore loose on the hangar deck and started a fire that Ford was sent below to assess.
Q 11Ford won his first House seat in 1948 by beating which isolationist incumbent?
Bartel J. Jonkman
A farm wager meant he spent two weeks milking cows after winning.
Q 12For how many years was Ford a member of the House of Representatives?
25
The final nine were as minority leader, and he never wrote a single piece of major legislation.
Q 13Which president appointed Ford to the Warren Commission in 1963?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Ford was assigned to prepare a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald and helped interview Jack Ruby.
Q 21Whom did Ford nominate as his own vice president on August 20, 1974?
Nelson Rockefeller
Bush had been his top competitor for the job.
Q 22What was the number of the proclamation that pardoned Nixon on September 8, 1974?
4311
Proclamation 4313, eight days later, created the conditional amnesty for draft evaders.
Q 23Which press secretary resigned in protest over the Nixon pardon?
Jerald terHorst
He was also a close friend of Ford's.
Q 24Ford was the first sitting president since whom to testify before the House?
Q 14Ford's 1965 book defending the Warren Report was titled what?
Portrait of the Assassin
Co-written with John R. Stiles, it was described as the Warren Report repackaged.
Q 15Ford replaced which Indiana congressman as House minority leader in 1965?
Charles Halleck
The 'Young Turks' who backed him included a young Donald Rumsfeld.
Q 16Ford's televised press conferences with Senator Everett Dirksen were nicknamed what?
The Ev and Jerry Show
Johnson retorted that Ford had played 'too much football without a helmet'.
Q 17Whose resignation in October 1973 opened the vice presidency for Ford?
Spiro Agnew
Nixon asked congressional leaders for advice, and the advice was unanimous: Ford.
Q 18Ford became the first vice president appointed under which constitutional amendment?
25th
The Senate confirmed him 92–3 and the House 387–35.
Q 19Which White House chief of staff warned Ford on August 1, 1974 to prepare for the presidency?
Alexander Haig
Ford told his wife Betty they would never live in the vice president's house.
Q 20Where in the White House did Ford take the oath of office on August 9, 1974?
East Room
He told the nation 'our long national nightmare is over'.
Abraham Lincoln
He testified on the pardon on October 17, 1974.
Q 25Which 1915 Supreme Court case did Ford carry in his wallet to justify the pardon?
Burdick v. United States
The ruling held that accepting a pardon is tantamount to a confession of guilt.
Q 26Which two Nixon cabinet members did Ford keep through his whole term?
Kissinger and Simon
The sweeping fall 1975 reshuffle became known as the Halloween Massacre.
Q 27Whom did Ford name the youngest-ever Secretary of Defense in 1975?
Donald Rumsfeld
Cheney then replaced him as chief of staff and ran Ford's 1976 campaign.
Q 28Ford made George H. W. Bush director of which agency in late 1975?
CIA
Bush had first been sent as chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China.
Q 29What did the letters on Ford's 1974 WIN buttons stand for?
Whip Inflation Now
Over nine days 101,240 Americans mailed in pledges; inflation was then above twelve percent.
Q 30Which newspaper ran the headline 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' in 1975?
New York Daily News
Ford had vowed to veto any federal bailout of the nearly bankrupt city.