John Tyler
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50 free John Tyler trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
John Tyler is the tenth president most people forget, which is a shame, because almost nothing about his time in office went the usual way. He reached the White House by a route no one had taken before, fought his own allies harder than his opponents, and left behind stories that sound invented. This quiz covers the whole life: the boyhood and early career in state and national politics, the 1840 campaign, the succession crisis of 1841, the showdowns with Congress, the treaties and territory of his foreign policy, his two marriages and large family, and the choices he made as the Union broke apart. The questions suit history fans, students working through a presidents unit, and anyone who enjoys the stranger corners of the American past. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01John Tyler became president in 1841 when which man died just one month into his term?
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison died 31 days after his inauguration, the first president to die in office. Nobody was sure a vice president could fully take over until Tyler insisted that he had.
Q 02Which mocking nickname did John Tyler earn for becoming president without being elected to the office?
His Accidency
His Accidency stuck as an insult, yet Tyler's firm stand set the rule that every later vice president followed when a president died.
Q 03In his final days in office, John Tyler signed a bill offering statehood to which republic?
Texas
Texas accepted the offer and joined the Union that December as the 28th state. Texans later named the city of Tyler in his honor.
Q 04A Virginia chemical engineer who died in 2025 was what relation to John Tyler, born in 1790?
Grandson
The grandson was born in 1928 to Tyler's son Lyon, then 75, who was himself born when the former president was 63. The three generations spanned 235 years.
Q 05John Tyler, who had two wives, holds which family record among all American presidents?
Most children
Most children by a wide margin: Tyler is usually credited with 15, the last seven with his second wife. The youngest, Pearl, was born when he was 70.
Q 06In June 1844, John Tyler became the first sitting American president to do what?
Get married
To get married in office, Tyler slipped away to New York City and wed Julia Gardiner, who was 30 years his junior. The secret ceremony became a sensation once newspapers found out.
Q 07Which banner draped the coffin of former president John Tyler at his funeral in 1862?
The Confederate flag
The Confederate flag covered him because he had just been elected to the South's new congress. Washington took no official notice of his death, a snub given to no other former president.
Q 08Which political party expelled John Tyler in 1841 while he was its own sitting president?
The Whigs
The Whigs threw him out two days after nearly all of his cabinet quit in protest. Tyler finished his term as a president without a party.
Q 09Which warship's giant gun burst on an 1844 Potomac cruise, killing two of John Tyler's cabinet?
USS Princeton
USS Princeton carried a huge gun named the Peacemaker, which blew apart and killed six people. Tyler was below deck at the time and escaped unhurt.
Q 10Feeling cast out by his party, John Tyler gave his plantation which name from English legend?
Sherwood Forest
Sherwood Forest was his joke about being an outlaw, like Robin Hood, in the eyes of his former allies. He retired there after leaving the White House.
Q 11First Lady Julia Tyler is credited with having which tune played to announce the president's arrival?
Hail to the Chief
Hail to the Chief suited her taste for royal ceremony. She also kept her own court of ladies-in-waiting, copied from the European courts she had visited before her time in the White House.
Q 12Shortly before John Tyler left office in 1845, Congress did what to a president for the first time?
Overrode his veto
Congress overrode his veto of a minor bill about revenue cutters on his last full day as president. No president before him had ever lost that fight.
Q 13Where did John Tyler take the presidential oath in April 1841, with a federal judge presiding?
His hotel room
Q 21Which secretary of state alone stayed on when the rest of John Tyler's cabinet resigned in 1841?
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster stayed to finish a border treaty with Britain and to show that he took no orders from his party's leader in the Senate. He finally left the cabinet in 1843.
Q 22Which senator and party leader orchestrated the mass resignation of John Tyler's cabinet in 1841?
Henry Clay
Henry Clay hoped the walkout would force Tyler to resign and put an ally of his own in the White House. Tyler quickly named a new cabinet instead.
Q 23After dropping his own 1844 run, John Tyler endorsed which Democrat, who went on to win?
James K. Polk
His hotel room in Washington had to do, since he had rushed to the capital overnight. Tyler believed his earlier oath already covered him but swore a second one to end all doubt.
Q 14What did John Tyler do with mail addressed to him as 'Acting President' or 'Vice President'?
Returned it unopened
Returned it unopened, every time: Tyler would accept nothing that questioned his title. Former president John Quincy Adams was among those who thought he should be only a caretaker.
Q 15John Tyler's father roomed at college with which future president, whom Tyler eulogized in 1826?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson stayed a friend of the Tyler family for life. When he died, the younger Tyler was running Virginia's government and delivered the state's funeral address for him.
Q 16Which profession did John Tyler enter at 19 and return to between his political offices?
Lawyer
Lawyer at 19 was too young under Virginia's rules, but the judge who admitted him never asked his age. Tyler trained under his father and then a former attorney general.
Q 17John Tyler raised the Charles City Rifles, a militia company, to defend Richmond in which conflict?
War of 1812
The War of 1812 never reached his company: no British attack came, and Captain Tyler sent his men home after two months. His service still earned him a land grant in what became Iowa.
Q 18Which drink became a symbol of the 1840 log cabin campaign that made John Tyler vice president?
Hard cider
Hard cider entered the race as an insult: a rival paper sneered that the old general would gladly retire to a log cabin with a barrel of it. His side turned the jab into a mascot.
Q 19The 1840 song title ending 'and Tyler Too' opens with which nickname of John Tyler's running mate?
Tippecanoe
Tippecanoe was the battle the head of the ticket had won as a general. A jeweler in Zanesville, Ohio, wrote the song, which caught on after he sang it at a rally in New York.
Q 20John Tyler came out of retirement in February 1861 to head which last-ditch gathering?
The Peace Conference
The Peace Conference drew 131 politicians to Washington hoping to hold the country together. After it failed, Tyler gave up on compromise and backed Virginia's secession.
James K. Polk also favored annexation, so Tyler dropped out that August and backed him. Tyler wrote that the new administration would be a continuance of his own.
Q 24John Tyler resigned from the Senate in 1836 rather than vote to erase the censure of which president?
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson had been censured with Tyler's own vote, and Virginia's legislature ordered him to help wipe the record clean. Giving up his seat instead won Tyler praise for integrity.
Q 25Which sitting president lost the 1840 election to the ticket with John Tyler on it?
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren took the blame for the slump that followed the Panic of 1837 and carried only seven of the 26 states. The winning side never even published a platform.
Q 26John Tyler twice rejected his own party's bills to create what, driving most of his cabinet to quit?
A national bank
A national bank struck Tyler as unconstitutional, a stand he first took at 21 in Virginia's legislature. His second rejection set off angry rallies against him around the country.
Q 27An 1842 treaty under John Tyler fixed which state's northern border, the cause of the Aroostook War?
Maine
Maine and neighboring New Brunswick had clashed over 12,000 square miles of disputed territory. The treaty split it, leaving the United States with about 7,000.
Q 28John Tyler sent Caleb Cushing in 1844 to negotiate the first American treaty with which country?
China
China agreed to the Treaty of Wanghia, and trade between the two countries grew greatly in the years that followed. Tyler wanted American merchants to compete with Britain's.
Q 29The 1842 Tyler Doctrine warned European powers against colonizing which Pacific island kingdom?
Hawaii
Hawaii mattered because American traders in Honolulu and American missionaries already held great influence there. Tyler's warning began the long path to annexation by the United States.
Q 30Which state joined the Union on John Tyler's last full day as president, March 3, 1845?
Florida
Florida entered as the 27th state, three years after Tyler declared an end to the long and bloody war against the Seminoles there.