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This hat trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and covers headwear from Ötzi's bearskin cap to Pharrell's Grammys hat: how the top hat, bowler, fedora, trilby, homburg and boater got their names, the true origins of the Panama hat and the ten-gallon Stetson, the beret's journey from Pyrenean shepherds to tank crews, the fez, ushanka, turban, kippah, mitre and mortarboard, and the bearskins, bicornes and tricornes of military dress. It also takes in famous hats and hat wearers, from Lincoln's stovepipe and Indiana Jones's fedora to the Sorting Hat, the Cat in the Hat and Oddjob's lethal bowler. There are questions on hat etiquette, on the mercury-poisoned hatters behind 'mad as a hatter', on the world's oldest hat shop, on Royal Ascot's dress code, on hard hats and on why a hat trick is called a hat trick. It suits pub quiz rounds, fashion and history fans, and anyone who has ever wondered why a bowler is a derby in America. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Which world-famous London hat shop, founded in 1676, claims to be the oldest hat shop in the world?
Lock & Co.
The Lock family, descendants of James Lock who inherited the business from his master in 1759, still own and run the shop at 6 St James's Street.
Q 02The Sorting Hat assigns Hogwarts first-years to one of how many houses?
Four
The Hat sits on each new student's head and announces Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin.
Q 03Which veteran British actor voiced the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films?
Leslie Phillips
Phillips was best known for his suave 'Ding dong!' comedy persona from the Carry On films long before he lent his voice to Hogwarts.
Q 04What colours are the stripes on the tall top hat worn by Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat?
Red and white
The 1957 book was written to replace the dull Dick and Jane primers, and its title came from the first two rhyming words Geisel found on a restricted vocabulary list.
Q 05Who played the title role in the poorly received 2003 live-action film The Cat in the Hat?
Mike Myers
The film was greenlit after Universal's Grinch movie did well, but critics savaged its humour, pacing and unfaithfulness to the book, and it disappointed at the box office.
Q 06Which fictional detective is so linked to the deerstalker cap that some call the cap by his first name?
Sherlock Holmes
Conan Doyle never named the cap; illustrator Sidney Paget, who wore one himself, put it on Holmes and the image stuck.
Q 07The Mexican sombrero takes its name from a Spanish word meaning what?
Shadower
In Spanish, sombrero can mean any hat at all; the giant charro version is properly a sombrero de charro.
Q 08Despite its name, the Panama hat is traditionally woven in which country?
Ecuador
The hats got their name because they were shipped through the Isthmus of Panama on their way to markets abroad.
Q 09The 'ten-gallon' hat is linked to which hatmaker, founded in Philadelphia in 1865?
Stetson
John B. Stetson's first western design, the 'Boss of the Plains', stayed in production for more than 150 years.
Q 10The bowler hat is known by what alternative name in the United States?
Derby
American outlaw Marion Hedgepeth was nicknamed 'the Derby Kid', and Lucius Beebe called the bowler 'the hat that won the West'.
Q 11Which US president popularised the tall stovepipe style of top hat and famously carried papers inside it?
Abraham Lincoln
One of his silk hats is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
Q 12Which whip-cracking film archaeologist re-popularised the fedora?
Indiana Jones
The character who hands over the hat in the 1912-set prologue of The Last Crusade is credited simply as 'Fedora'.
Q 13Fans of which sport throw their hats onto the playing surface when a player scores three goals?
Ice hockey
One origin story credits Guelph's Biltmore Hat Company, which gave a free fedora to any Mad Hatters junior player who scored three.
Q 21The trilby hat got its name from the stage adaptation of an 1894 novel by which author?
George du Maurier
A hat of the style was worn in the first London production of the play, and it was promptly dubbed 'a Trilby hat'.
Q 22The bowler hat was created in 1849 as a hard, low-crowned hat to protect which workers from low branches?
Gamekeepers
Legend says Edward Coke stamped on the finished hat twice to test it before paying 12 shillings.
Q 23Which British general adopted a black beret with two badges as his trademark during the Second World War?
Bernard Montgomery
The black beret had been approved for the Royal Tank Corps by King George V in 1924 because it stayed on while climbing through tank hatches.
Q 14The term 'hat-trick' was coined in 1858 in which sport?
Cricket
Bowler H. H. Stephenson took three wickets with three consecutive balls, and fans passed a hat round to buy him one as a reward.
Q 15Which soft, round, flat-crowned cap became a symbol of Basque identity and of artists?
Beret
Mass production began in the Basque Country in the 19th century, and the first factory, Beatex-Laulhere, claims records back to 1810.
Q 16What is the red felt cylindrical hat with a black tassel, once official Ottoman headwear, called?
Fez
The name may come from the Moroccan city where the crimson berry dye was sourced; Tommy Cooper made it a comedy icon.
Q 17The Russian fur hat with fold-down ear flaps, the ushanka, takes its name from the Russian word for what?
Ears
The Red Army only adopted it after the Winter War, copying the fur hats the better-equipped Finns had worn since 1936.
Q 18The Hebrew word 'kippah', the name of the Jewish skullcap, literally means what?
Dome
The Yiddish name yarmulke is often linked to the Aramaic phrase yire malka, 'fear of the King'.
Q 19The word 'milliner' for a hat-maker derives from the name of which Italian city?
Milan
It originally meant a Milanese merchant selling fancy bonnets, gloves and cutlery, and only from 1713 came to mean a woman making bonnets.
Q 20The fedora hat is named after an 1882 play written for which famous French actress?
Sarah Bernhardt
Bernhardt wore a soft centre-creased hat as Princess Fédora Romazoff, and the style was first a women's fashion before men took it up in the 1920s.
Q 24Which future British king popularised the homburg hat in the 1890s?
Edward VII
He brought the style back from the German spa town of Bad Homburg and was flattered when others copied it.
Q 25'Mad as a hatter' is popularly traced to hat-makers poisoned by which element used in felt-making?
Mercury
The tremors, slurred speech and hallucinations were so common in Danbury, Connecticut, that they were called the 'Danbury Shakes'.
Q 26Where did the Straw Hat Riot of 1922, when youths smashed men's straw hats after summer's end, take place?
New York
It lasted eight days and peaked with a mob of about 1,000 hat-destroyers, since men were not supposed to wear straw after September 15.
Q 27Which US president was photographed in a Panama hat at the canal site in 1906, boosting its popularity?
Theodore Roosevelt
Demand had already surged decades earlier when gold-rush prospectors crossing the isthmus bought them for the sun.
Q 28Which leader banned the fez in Turkey in 1925 as part of a modernising 'Hat Revolution'?
Kemal Atatürk
Ironically, Sultan Mahmud II had imposed the fez a century earlier for the same reason: to modernise and to replace the turban.
Q 29The British foot guards' bearskin caps were adopted by the Grenadier Guards after which 1815 victory?
Waterloo
The tall caps came from the French Imperial Guard they had just beaten; each British cap uses one whole bear skin.
Q 30Workers from which country introduced the bowler hats worn by Bolivia's Aymara and Quechua women in the 1920s?
Britain
For years a factory in Italy made the bombín for the Bolivian market before local production took over.