Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
47 free Inventions trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Inventions trivia questions with answers. Who invented the telephone, the microwave oven, the safety razor, the zipper? This quiz is fifty rounds of exactly that question, from Gutenberg's movable type to Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web, with the accidental discoveries (penicillin, the microwave, Post-it Notes) mixed in with the deliberate ones. It suits pub quizzes, classrooms and anyone who likes knowing where everyday things came from. About a third of the questions are ones most people half-remember from school; the rest reward real curiosity about the history of technology. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source, and the sentence that establishes it is shown under each question, so the arguments about who really invented radio can be settled on the spot.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who is widely credited with developing the movable type printing press in Europe during the 15th century?
Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gutenberg's innovation around 1440 significantly reduced the cost of books and made knowledge more accessible, leading to a revolution in communication in Europe.
Q 02Which inventor is most associated with the practical incandescent light bulb of the late 19th century?
Thomas Edison
While many contributed to electric lighting, Thomas Edison's 1879 invention of a commercially viable, long-lasting incandescent light bulb made electric light accessible for general use.
Q 03Who was granted the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876?
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell received the first U.S. patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876, although several inventors were working on similar concepts at the time.
Q 04Who is credited with inventing the first successful gasoline-powered automobile in 1886?
Karl Benz
Karl Benz built the three-wheeled Benz Patent-Motorwagen in 1885 and received German patent DRP 37435 for it in January 1886; it is widely regarded as the first practical automobile.
Q 05The Wright brothers achieved the first sustained, controlled flight of a powered aircraft in what year?
1903
Orville and Wilbur Wright made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, marking the birth of aviation.
Q 06Who developed the first successful polio vaccine in the 1950s?
Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk developed the first inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) which was introduced in 1955 and dramatically reduced polio cases worldwide.
Q 07Who is credited with the discovery of penicillin in 1928?
Alexander Fleming
Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin's antibacterial properties from a mold contamination in his lab in 1928, ushering in the age of antibiotics.
Q 08Who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989?
Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN, developed the World Wide Web in 1989 to facilitate information sharing among scientists.
Q 09In what year was ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, publicly dedicated?
1946
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and dedicated in 1946, marking a significant step in the history of computing.
Q 10Which 1947 invention revolutionized electronics by enabling the miniaturization of circuits?
Transistor
The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947, replaced bulky vacuum tubes and paved the way for modern electronics.
Q 11Who sent the first transatlantic radio signal, from Cornwall to Newfoundland, in 1901?
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi claimed reception of the Morse letter 'S' at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, on 12 December 1901, transmitted from Poldhu in Cornwall; he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Q 12In what decade did regular public television broadcasts begin in several countries?
1930s
Experimental television broadcasts began earlier, but regular public television services were established in several countries, including the UK and USA, during the 1930s.
Q 13Whose 1839 photographic process produced one-off images on silvered copper plates?
Louis Daguerre
Q 21Who discovered X-rays in 1895?
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays (which he called 'X-radiation') in 1895, an achievement for which he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.
Q 22Which Swedish chemist invented dynamite in 1867?
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, a safer and more stable explosive than nitroglycerin, and patented it in 1867. His fortune later endowed the Nobel Prizes.
Q 23Who invented the first true electric battery, a stack of zinc and copper discs, in 1800?
Alessandro Volta
Louis Daguerre perfected the daguerreotype, a direct positive on a silvered copper plate, building on Nicéphore Niépce's work; France announced the process to the world on 19 August 1839.
Q 14The 'Spinning Jenny', an invention that revolutionized textile production, was created by whom?
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764, which allowed a worker to spin multiple spools of yarn simultaneously, greatly increasing textile output.
Q 15What 1793 Eli Whitney invention transformed crop production in the American South?
Cotton gin
The cotton gin efficiently separated cotton fibers from their seeds, making cotton cultivation much more profitable and influencing the economy of the American South.
Q 16Who invented and produced the first electric refrigerators for home use, in 1913?
Fred W. Wolf
Fred W. Wolf of Fort Wayne, Indiana, sold the DOMELRE (DOMestic ELectric REfrigerator) from 1913, an air-cooled unit mounted on top of an existing icebox; Kelvinator and Frigidaire followed within a few years.
Q 17What common fastener was patented by Whitcomb L. Judson in 1893?
Zipper
Whitcomb L. Judson patented his 'Clasp Locker or Unlocker for Shoes' in 1893, which was a precursor to the modern zipper, initially designed to fasten shoes.
Q 18Who is widely recognized for inventing the modern ballpoint pen, patented in 1938?
László Bíró
László Bíró, frustrated with smudging fountain pens, developed a new pen using thicker, fast-drying ink and a ball-and-socket mechanism, patenting it in 1938.
Q 19The Post-it Note was invented in the 1970s by scientists at which company?
3M
Spencer Silver accidentally developed a 'low-tack', reusable adhesive in 1968 at 3M, which Art Fry later used to create the Post-it Note in 1974.
Q 20What kitchen appliance was accidentally invented by Percy Spencer in the 1940s?
Microwave oven
Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, discovered in 1945 that microwaves could heat food after noticing a chocolate bar in his pocket melted near a magnetron.
Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile in 1800, which was the first device to provide a continuous electric current and is considered the first true battery.
Q 24Whose 1871 dynamo design led directly to the first commercially successful DC electric motors?
Zénobe Gramme
Zénobe Gramme's ring-armature dynamo of 1871 produced smooth direct current; at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair his team found by accident that a second Gramme machine fed by the first ran as a motor.
Q 25The first integrated circuit was independently invented by Jack Kilby and whom?
Robert Noyce
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor independently invented the integrated circuit in 1958 and 1959, respectively, revolutionizing electronics.
Q 26Frederick Banting shared the 1923 Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin with which scientist?
John Macleod
Banting was furious that his student Charles Best was left out and split his prize money with him; John Macleod did the same for James Collip, who had purified the extract.
Q 27Who is credited with inventing the first practical mercury thermometer in 1714?
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first reliable mercury thermometer in 1714 and developed the temperature scale that bears his name.
Q 28Who conceived the electric chair as a more humane method of execution in 1881?
Alfred P. Southwick
Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New York dentist, conceived the electric chair method of execution in 1881 after witnessing an accidental electrocution.
Q 29Which DuPont chemist invented Kevlar, the high-strength synthetic fibre now used in bulletproof vests, in 1965?
Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Kwolek was looking for a lightweight, strong fibre for tyres when she made Kevlar at DuPont in 1965; it went commercial in the early 1970s.
Q 30Which invention, patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952, revolutionized checkout?
Barcode
Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver patented the barcode in 1952, a system that would later become universally adopted for tracking products, especially in supermarkets.