Matthew Henson
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40 free Matthew Henson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Matthew Henson spent nearly 23 years travelling with Robert Peary, and in April 1909 he was one of the small party that claimed to be first to reach the North Pole. By his own account he got there ahead of his commander. For decades the credit went elsewhere, which is part of what makes his story worth knowing. This quiz follows Henson from an orphaned boyhood and his first years of work through the Arctic expeditions, the skills he learned from the Inuit, the long wait for recognition, and the tributes that carry his name today. The questions suit students working on a Black History Month project, teachers who want a ready-made classroom round, and anyone who likes polar adventure. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up a new fun fact even when you guess wrong.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In 2021, astronomers named a crater after Matthew Henson near the south pole of which world?
Moon
The Moon now has a Henson crater at its south pole, the opposite end of the sky map from the pole he chased. A student intern proposed the name.
Q 02Which cartoon characters fronted a 1978 educational filmstrip series featuring Matthew Henson, Black explorer?
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo and the gang lent their name to Hanna-Barbera's 1978 educational filmstrips on Black explorers, one of them devoted to Henson.
Q 03In the 1890s, Matthew Henson helped Robert Peary haul which giant objects from the Arctic to a New York museum?
Meteorites
Meteorites, three of them, came south with Peary and Henson. The largest is so heavy that the supports of its display stand reach the bedrock under the museum.
Q 04Which Motown star names Matthew Henson in his 1976 song Black Man?
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder wrote Black Man with Gary Byrd while the US Bicentennial was under way, listing achievers of many races, Henson among them.
Q 05In 1988, Matthew Henson was reburied with military honors near Robert Peary's grave in which burial ground?
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery received Henson and his wife Lucy on April 6, 1988, the 79th anniversary of the day his party claimed the Pole.
Q 06Matthew Henson and Robert Peary's last expedition ship sailed north carrying 246 of which animals?
Dogs
Dogs pulled the sledges, and Henson learned to drive and train them the Inuit way. About 130 went out with the men who laid the trail toward the Pole.
Q 07Henson and Peary's ice-breaking expedition ship of 1908 was named for which US president, a Peary supporter?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt had openly backed Peary, so the ship launched in 1905 took his name. Peary's wife christened it with a bottle of champagne encased in ice.
Q 08Matthew Henson first went to sea aboard the merchant ship Katie Hines in which job?
Cabin boy
Cabin boy was Henson's first job at sea, and six years aboard taught him to read, write and navigate, the skills that later caught Peary's eye.
Q 09Which comedian's 2019 Netflix special on Black history retells Matthew Henson's trek, with Tom Kenny as Robert Peary?
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart's Guide to Black History mixes re-enactments with archive footage, and casts Barry Brewer as Henson on the ice.
Q 10In 1986, Matthew Henson and Robert Peary appeared together on what kind of national tribute?
A postage stamp
A postage stamp worth 22 cents finally named both men in 1986. A 1959 issue had marked their expedition without naming either of them.
Q 11Matthew Henson's first Arctic expedition with Robert Peary, in 1891, set out to explore which enormous island?
Greenland
Greenland is where Henson first learned Arctic survival from the Inuit, picking up their language and how to dress, hunt and travel as they did.
Q 12Matthew Henson was born in 1866 near the Potomac River in which US state?
Maryland
Maryland remembers its native son with a state park, several schools and a plaque in the rotunda of its State House.
Q 13Which shelters did Matthew Henson learn to build from the Inuit, giving Peary's teams mobile housing on the trail?
Igloos
Igloos went up at each camp on the march. In his memoir Henson writes that he and his team could build a good big one in less than an hour.
Q 21Matthew Henson's first journey with Robert Peary was a canal-route expedition to which Central American country?
Nicaragua
Nicaragua was being surveyed for a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific. Henson's hard work in its jungle won him a place on Peary's Arctic trips.
Q 22In 1887 Robert Peary first hired Matthew Henson, then a young store clerk, to do which job?
Valet
Valet was only his first title. On seven Arctic expeditions Henson became Peary's navigator, craftsman and interpreter, known as his "first man".
Q 23Which famous educator wrote the introduction to Matthew Henson's 1912 memoir of the polar expedition?
Booker T. Washington
Q 14Robert Peary, Matthew Henson's expedition leader, lost several of which body parts to frostbite in 1899?
Toes
Toes snapped off at the first joint after Peary's frozen march to Fort Conger. Bedridden for weeks, he wrote a Latin vow on the wall to find a way or make one.
Q 15Robert Peary, who hired Matthew Henson in 1887, was a civil engineer and officer in which US service?
The Navy
The Navy commissioned Peary in its Civil Engineer Corps in 1881. An Act of Congress later made him a rear admiral, backdated to April 6, 1909.
Q 16In 1937, Matthew Henson became the first African American member of which New York-based society?
The Explorers Club
The Explorers Club admitted Henson 28 years after the polar trek. In 1948 it raised him to honorary member, its highest rank.
Q 17Matthew Henson was clerking in what kind of store when Robert Peary met him in 1887?
A hat shop
A hat shop in the US capital employed Henson, and its owner recommended him to Peary. Hearing of his years at sea, Peary hired him at once.
Q 18Which US president honored Matthew Henson and his wife Lucy at the White House in 1954?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower welcomed Henson a year before the explorer died, part of a late run of honors of the kind Peary had received decades earlier.
Q 19Which US president granted the exception that let Matthew Henson be reburied with military honors in 1988?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan agreed in 1987 after a petition from a scientist who had traced Henson's descendants. Henson, a civilian, needed an exception to the burial rules.
Q 20Matthew Henson's home from 1929 until his death, now a National Historic Landmark, is in which New York neighborhood?
Harlem
Harlem's Dunbar Apartments, built to ease a housing shortage for Black New Yorkers, counted Henson among tenants as famous as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
Booker T. Washington praised Henson there as the most trusted and the most useful member of the expedition. Peary himself supplied the foreword.
Q 24Which rival American explorer claimed he had reached the North Pole a year before Henson and Peary?
Frederick Cook
Frederick Cook had been the surgeon on Peary and Henson's 1891 expedition. Henson, who spoke the language, questioned the two Inuit men who had travelled with him.
Q 25After the 1909 expedition, Matthew Henson spent decades as a clerk at which New York City federal workplace?
The Customs House
The Customs House kept Henson on its payroll for more than two decades as a messenger and clerk. He retired at 70 on a pension of $1,020 a year.
Q 26Which award, the National Geographic Society's highest honor, went to Matthew Henson decades after his death?
The Hubbard Medal
The Hubbard Medal went to Henson in 2000 and was accepted by his great-niece. Peary had received the same award back in 1906.
Q 27USNS Henson, named for Matthew Henson in the 1990s, was built for which kind of work at sea?
Ocean surveying
Ocean surveying is the job of the Pathfinder-class Henson, which in 2010 joined the search for the wreck of John Paul Jones's Bonhomme Richard off England.
Q 28Which kind of spacecraft, first named Columbus, was renamed Matthew Henson after its 2020 launch?
A GPS satellite
A GPS satellite suits him: Henson served as Peary's navigator and judged by dead reckoning that he had arrived at the Pole.
Q 29Which actor played Matthew Henson opposite Henry Czerny's Robert Peary in the 1998 TV film Glory & Honor?
Delroy Lindo
Delroy Lindo won a Golden Satellite Award for the role, in a film shot partly on Baffin Island that also took home a Primetime Emmy.
Q 30S. Allen Counter, who traced Matthew Henson's Arctic-born son in 1986, was a professor at which university?
Harvard
Harvard neuroscientist Counter found Henson's son Anauakaq, by then in his eighties, and brought him to the US in 1987 to meet relatives and visit his father's grave.