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80 free Medium trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
67 free medium trivia questions with answers, pitched at the level most pub quizzes and family game nights actually run at: harder than a warm-up round, easier than the tie-breaker. Nothing here needs a specialist, but nothing is a giveaway either. Think the king who sealed Magna Carta, the river that empties into the Black Sea, the element with the symbol W, and the first film to win Best Picture. The mix is deliberately broad. History, geography, science, sport, film and TV, music, literature, food and drink, technology, nature and a few general-knowledge oddities each get their own share, and no single subject makes up more than a fifth of the quiz. Difficulty scores sit between 40 and 60 out of 100 across the board, so a strong general-knowledge player should land somewhere around two-thirds correct. Every answer has been checked against a reference page, mostly the relevant Wikipedia article, and each question shows its source and the sentence that backs it up once you answer. Use it as a self-test, a mid-level round for a quiz you are hosting, or a fair way to settle who really knows more.
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Q 01Which English king put his seal to Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215?
John
John's barons forced the charter on him after years of heavy taxation and lost French lands; the Pope annulled it within weeks.
Q 02Suleiman the Magnificent was the longest-reigning sultan of which empire?
Ottoman
His 46-year reign from 1520 pushed the empire's borders to the gates of Vienna and made its navy the master of the Mediterranean.
Q 03Soldiers from which country's army found the Rosetta Stone in Egypt in 1799?
France
The British took it from the French two years later under the Capitulation of Alexandria, which is why it sits in the British Museum today.
Q 04Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?
Marie Curie
She remains the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.
Q 05Despite its name, the Anglo-French Hundred Years' War actually lasted how many years?
116
It ran from 1337 to 1453, and five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought over the French throne.
Q 06Which US president completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803?
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson mainly wanted the port of New Orleans; Napoleon offered the whole territory instead, roughly doubling the size of the country.
Q 07The best-known brick-and-stone sections of the Great Wall of China were built under which dynasty?
Ming
Earlier walls were mostly rammed earth; the Ming rebuilt in brick and stone after a humiliating defeat by the Oirat Mongols in 1449.
Q 08The Taj Mahal was commissioned by which Mughal ruler as a tomb for his wife?
Shah Jahan
Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 giving birth to their fourteenth child; Shah Jahan was later buried beside her.
Q 09The Danube river empties into which sea?
Black Sea
On the way it passes through four national capitals: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.
Q 10The temple complex of Angkor Wat is in which country?
Cambodia
It is the largest religious structure in the world and appears on the national flag.
Q 11Which is the largest lake in Africa by surface area?
Victoria
It is also the world's largest tropical lake and the source of the White Nile.
Q 12Which desert stretches across southern Mongolia and northern China?
Gobi
It is a cold desert: winter temperatures in southern Mongolia have dropped below minus 30 °C.
Q 13Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, is in which country?
Tanzania
Its summit was renamed Uhuru Peak, Swahili for 'Freedom Peak', after independence in 1964.
Q 14Which river carries more water to the sea than any other on Earth?
Q 21What is the speed of light in a vacuum, to the nearest thousand kilometres per second?
300,000 km/s
The figure is exact by definition: since 1983 the metre has been defined by how far light travels in a fraction of a second.
Q 22Which astronomer formulated the three laws of planetary motion?
Johannes Kepler
He worked out the first two laws by analysing Tycho Brahe's painstaking observations of the orbit of Mars.
Q 23Which vitamin does the skin make when exposed to sunlight?
D
For most people skin synthesis provides more of it than food does, which is why it is only conditionally essential in the diet.
Amazon
Its average discharge is greater than the next seven largest independent rivers combined.
Q 15'Sagarmatha' is the local name for which mountain in Nepal?
Everest
On the Tibetan side it is Qomolangma; a 2020 joint Nepal–China survey put its height at 8,848.86 m.
Q 16Which country has the longest coastline in the world?
Canada
Its coastline runs about 243,000 km across three oceans; the country also shares a 1,280-metre land border with Greenland.
Q 17Which chemical element has the symbol W?
Tungsten
The W comes from wolfram, the name still used in most Germanic and Slavic languages; it has the highest melting point of any metal.
Q 18Which planet rotates almost on its side, with an axial tilt near 98 degrees?
Uranus
Its poles take turns pointing almost straight at the Sun, so each gets 42 years of daylight followed by 42 of darkness.
Q 19Roughly what percentage of dry air is nitrogen?
78%
Oxygen makes up about 21%, argon nearly 1%, and carbon dioxide only around 0.04%.
Q 20Which blood type is often called the universal donor for red-cell transfusions?
O negative
AB positive is the mirror image: the universal recipient of red cells.
Q 24Which inventor is best known for his work on the alternating current (AC) electricity system?
Nikola Tesla
His 1887 induction motor ran on AC, the format that won out because it transmits power over long distances far more efficiently.
Q 25How many players does each volleyball team have on court?
6
All six rotate through the positions, so every player takes a turn at the net as a hitter.
Q 26The first modern Olympic Games, in 1896, were held in which city?
Athens
The United States won the most golds with 11, but host Greece won the most medals overall.
Q 27Which country won the men's FIFA World Cup five times between 1958 and 2002?
Brazil
Brazil won in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002, and is the only nation to have appeared at every World Cup tournament.
Q 28In golf, what is a score of three under par on a single hole called?
Albatross
Americans usually call it a double eagle; a hole-in-one on a par four is one way to make one.
Q 29In which sport do teams slide granite stones toward a target called the 'house'?
Curling
Each team of four gets eight stones per end, and the sport was invented in medieval Scotland.
Q 30What is the official distance of a marathon?
42.195 km
The odd figure comes from the 1908 London Olympics course and was fixed as the standard by the IAAF in 1921.