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50 free Lyndon B. Johnson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Lyndon B. Johnson trivia quiz follows LBJ from a farmhouse on the Pedernales River and a year teaching Mexican-American children in Cotulla to Congress in 1937, the Silver Star, the 87-vote Senate primary that made him Landslide Lyndon, and the Senate majority leadership that Robert Caro calls the most effective in history. It covers the 1960 convention, the vice presidency Kennedy's staff sneered at, the oath aboard Air Force One and the only woman ever to swear in a president. The presidential half covers the Civil Rights Act, the Daisy ad and the 61 percent landslide over Barry Goldwater, Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration Act, public broadcasting, Thurgood Marshall, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Tet, the March 1968 speech that ended his re-election bid, and the retirement, heart attacks and burial beside the house where he was born. There are lighter questions too, on the Johnson Treatment, Lady Bird and the helicopter he called the Johnson City Windmill. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our John F. Kennedy and US presidents quizzes next.
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Q 01Which number president of the United States was Lyndon B. Johnson?
36th
He served from November 1963 to January 1969, between Kennedy and Nixon.
Q 02Near which Texas town was Johnson born in 1908?
Stonewall
He was buried in 1973 in the family cemetery near the same farmhouse on the Pedernales River.
Q 03In which town did Johnson spend nine months teaching Mexican-American children in a segregated school?
Cotulla
He never forgot their faces, he said in 1965, and the pain of knowing college was closed to nearly all of them.
Q 04What subject did Johnson teach at Sam Houston High School in Houston?
Public speaking
He had graduated in 1930 with a Bachelor of Science in history and a high school teaching certificate.
Q 05What was the maiden name of Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson?
Taylor
She came from Karnack, Texas, and Johnson proposed on their very first date in 1934.
Q 06What did Johnson do on his first date with Lady Bird?
Asked her to marry him
Many dates later she agreed, and they married at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio.
Q 07What were the names of the Johnsons' two daughters?
Lynda Bird and Luci Baines
Everyone in the family shared the initials LBJ.
Q 08In which year did Johnson win a special election to the US House of Representatives?
1937
Texas's 10th district included Austin and the Hill Country, and he served until January 1949.
Q 09Which general awarded Johnson the Silver Star in 1942?
Douglas MacArthur
It was for gallantry during an aerial combat mission over New Guinea.
Q 10By how many votes did Johnson win the 1948 Democratic Senate primary in Texas?
87
Out of 988,295 cast, a margin that earned him the mocking nickname Landslide Lyndon.
Q 11What nickname did the 1948 primary result permanently attach to Johnson?
Landslide Lyndon
He went on to beat Republican Jack Porter comfortably in the general election.
Q 12What name was given to the rented Sikorsky helicopter LBJ campaigned in during 1948?
The Johnson City Windmill
It drew crowds to fairgrounds across the state.
Q 13In which year did Johnson become Senate majority leader?
1954
Historians Robert Caro and Robert Dallek consider him the most effective majority leader ever.
Q 21Which body did Johnson set up to investigate Kennedy's assassination?
The Warren Commission
He publicly backed its findings but privately voiced scepticism.
Q 22On what date did Johnson sign the landmark Civil Rights Act into law?
July 2, 1964
He had told Congress in his "Let Us Continue" speech that no eulogy could honour Kennedy more than passing the bill.
Q 23What did Johnson call his domestic programme of civil rights, health care and anti-poverty measures?
The Great Society
He later called it "the woman I really loved" and regretted that Vietnam overshadowed it.
Q 14What was the "Johnson Treatment"?
His method of physically intimidating senators to win votes
He kept biographies of every senator and used his 6 ft 3½ in frame to loom over them.
Q 15Which 1958 law, creating NASA, did Johnson push through the Senate after the launch of Sputnik?
The National Aeronautics and Space Act
He also set up the Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee and made himself its first chairman.
Q 16How many votes did Johnson get on the only ballot at the 1960 Democratic convention, against Kennedy's 806?
409
He had asked Tip O'Neill for support on the second ballot; O'Neill replied there would not be one.
Q 17Why did Kennedy choose Johnson as his running mate in 1960?
To attract Southern votes
AFL-CIO president George Meany called Johnson "the arch-foe of labor".
Q 18What unusual double candidacy did Johnson pursue in 1960 after having Texas law changed?
Vice president and a third Senate term
He won both but never took the Senate seat, and William Blakley was appointed in his place.
Q 19Which judge swore Johnson in aboard Air Force One after Kennedy's assassination?
Sarah T. Hughes
He remains the only US president sworn in by a woman.
Q 20What did Johnson do the moment the door of Air Force One closed after the swearing-in?
Lit his first cigarette since 1955
He was convinced an immediate show of transition was needed to steady the nation.
Q 24In which speech did Johnson declare an "unconditional war on poverty in America"?
The 1964 State of the Union
The programme later grew to include the Demonstration Cities urban renewal effort.
Q 25Which 1965 legislation created Medicare and Medicaid?
The Social Security Amendments
Ways and Means chairman Wilbur Mills designed the three-layer structure to blunt Republican opposition.
Q 26What was the 1964 campaign ad showing a girl picking petals before a nuclear explosion called?
The Daisy ad
It implied that electing Barry Goldwater risked nuclear war and aired only once, on September 7, 1964.
Q 27Whom did Johnson defeat in the 1964 presidential election?
Barry Goldwater
Goldwater's supporters carried bumper stickers reading "In your heart, you know he's right".
Q 28What share of the popular vote did Johnson win in 1964, the highest ever recorded?
61.05%
He carried 44 states and won the Electoral College 486 to 52.
Q 29How many electoral votes did Johnson win in 1964?
486
Goldwater took just 52 electoral votes from six states.
Q 30With which Republican senator did Johnson ally to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Everett Dirksen
Their alliance precluded a Senate filibuster from defeating the bill.