Nebraska Trivia
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100 free Nebraska trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free Nebraska trivia questions with answers. Nebraska is the state that invented Kool-Aid, Arbor Day and the Reuben sandwich, runs the only one-house legislature in America, and sells out every football game since 1962. This quiz covers all of that plus the history (the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Pony Express, statehood in 1867), the geography (the Sandhills, the Ogallala Aquifer, two time zones), Omaha and Lincoln, Warren Buffett, Chimney Rock, Carhenge and the sandhill cranes on the Platte. Easy questions cover the capital and the state's most famous exports. Harder ones ask how many senators sit in the unicameral, what Kool-Aid was called before it was a powder, how many cars are in Carhenge, and where a brick star marks the start of the West. It suits a Husker tailgate, a classroom, or a state-themed pub quiz round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the state, its cities, its history and its landmarks, and each question carries its source.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Nebraska's most populous city, sitting on the Missouri River?
Omaha
Omaha is Nebraska's largest city by a wide margin: the 2020 census counted about 486,000 residents inside the city limits, well ahead of any other city in the state.
Q 02Nebraska became the 37th state on March 1 of which year?
1867
Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state on March 1, 1867, two years after the Civil War ended, after Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson's veto of the statehood bill.
Q 03The name Nebraska comes from Otoe and Omaha words meaning what?
Flat water
Flat water is the meaning of the Otoe and Omaha words behind the state's name; both describe the wide, shallow river that crosses the whole state from west to east.
Q 04What makes the Nebraska Legislature unique among US state legislatures?
It is unicameral and nonpartisan
It is unicameral and nonpartisan: voters approved a 1934 amendment merging the house and senate, which cut the membership from 133 to 43, and the single chamber first met in 1937.
Q 05What title do all 49 members of Nebraska's state legislature hold?
Senator
Senator is every member's title, and with only 49 of them Nebraska has the smallest legislature of any state, so a bill can pass with just 25 votes, though ending a filibuster takes 33.
Q 06Which soft drink, invented in Hastings in 1927, is Nebraska's official state soft drink?
Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid was created by Edwin Perkins in Hastings in 1927, when he dried his bottled fruit syrup into a powder to cut shipping costs; Nebraska later named it the official state soft drink.
Q 07What was the liquid concentrate that Kool-Aid was developed from?
Fruit Smack
Fruit Smack was Edwin Perkins's bottled fruit syrup; in 1927 he dehydrated it into a powder sold in paper packets, far cheaper to ship than glass bottles that often broke in transit.
Q 08Which holiday was founded in Nebraska City by J. Sterling Morton?
Arbor Day
Arbor Day was proposed by J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraska City newspaper editor, and first held on April 10, 1872, when prizes for the most trees planted helped put an estimated million in the ground.
Q 09Roughly how many trees were planted in Nebraska on the first Arbor Day in 1872?
One million
One million trees is the figure usually given for that first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872, when prizes were offered to the counties and individuals that planted the most.
Q 10Nebraska and which other state split electoral votes by district in the 2024 election?
Maine
Maine has split its electoral votes by congressional district since 1972 and Nebraska since 1992, yet Nebraska's first actual split came only in 2008, when Barack Obama won a single district's vote.
Q 11Which time zone or zones does Nebraska observe?
Central and Mountain
Central and Mountain: most of Nebraska runs on Central Time, but the Panhandle and a strip beside it keep Mountain Time, and the line cuts Cherry County in two, leaving it on two clocks.
Q 12Warren Buffett paid about how much for his longtime Omaha house in 1958?
$31,500
$31,500 bought Warren Buffett his Omaha house in 1958, and he never traded up: he went on living there for decades after becoming one of the richest people in the world.
Q 13As of 2025, which Fortune 500 railroad had its headquarters in Omaha?
Union Pacific
Union Pacific was chartered in 1862 to build the eastern leg of the first transcontinental railroad and laid its first rails in Omaha in 1865, meeting the Central Pacific in Utah four years later.
Q 21Which Japanese company opened a motorcycle assembly plant in the state capital in 1974?
Kawasaki
Kawasaki opened the Lincoln plant in 1974 to assemble motorcycles for North American buyers, and the site later took on building rail cars as well.
Q 22Which regional fast-food chain, known for its bread-pocket sandwiches, began in the state capital?
Runza
Runza opened its first stand in Lincoln in 1949, selling the bread pocket stuffed with beef, cabbage and onions that founder Sally Everett adapted from a German-Russian family recipe.
Q 23How many national championships have the Nebraska Cornhuskers won in football?
Five
Five: 1970 and 1971 under Bob Devaney, then 1994, 1995 and 1997 under Tom Osborne, the last shared with Michigan after the AP and coaches' polls split.
Q 14Which annual NCAA championship event has made its home in Omaha?
The College World Series
The College World Series moved to Omaha in 1950 after two years in Kalamazoo and one in Wichita, and has stayed ever since, trading Rosenblatt Stadium for a new downtown ballpark in 2011.
Q 15Which of these sandwiches is claimed as an Omaha invention?
The Reuben
The Reuben is said to have been created at Omaha's Blackstone Hotel in the 1920s and named for grocer Reuben Kulakofsky, a regular at the hotel's weekly poker game.
Q 16Which US president spoke at Omaha's Trans-Mississippi Exposition, a world's fair, in October 1898?
William McKinley
William McKinley came for 'President's Day' on October 12, 1898, and about a hundred thousand people packed the plaza to hear him; the fair drew more than 2.6 million visitors in five months.
Q 17Which US Air Force organisation moved to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha in 1948?
Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command moved its headquarters from Andrews in Maryland to Offutt in November 1948, picked because the base sat in the middle of the continent, beyond the reach of the bombers of the day.
Q 18Omaha hosted the first official performance of whose Wild West Show in 1883?
Buffalo Bill Cody's
Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West opened in Omaha in 1883 and came back for a 'Cody Day' at the city's 1898 world's fair; the show's animals wintered at his Scout's Rest Ranch near North Platte.
Q 19What was the state capital called before it was renamed for the assassinated president?
Lancaster
Lancaster was a tiny village when a three-member commission scouting sites south of the Platte chose it for the new capital in 1867; the renamed city still sits in Lancaster County.
Q 20What does the statue atop Nebraska's State Capitol depict?
A sower
A sower: the bronze figure scatters seed from the top of a 400-foot tower that Nebraska built in stages over ten years, paying as it went, so the capitol was free of debt when it was finished.
Q 24As of 2025, which streak had Nebraska football kept alive since 1962?
Home sellouts
Home sellouts: every home game since 1962 has officially sold out, a run of more than 400 that survived the lean seasons with the help of bulk sales of unsold tickets to donors and sponsors.
Q 25What is Nebraska's football defense nicknamed?
The Blackshirts
The Blackshirts name dates to 1964, when Bob Devaney's staff began giving the first-team defense black pullover practice jerseys so coaches could tell them apart from the offense.
Q 26Which three Cornhuskers have won the Heisman Trophy?
Johnny Rodgers, Mike Rozier and Eric Crouch
Johnny Rodgers, Mike Rozier and Eric Crouch won in 1972, 1983 and 2001, while Tommie Frazier, quarterback of two national champions, finished only runner-up to Ohio State's Eddie George in 1995.
Q 27The 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma clash, won by top-ranked Nebraska, is remembered by what name?
The Game of the Century
The Game of the Century was played on Thanksgiving Day 1971 in Norman; a first-quarter punt-return touchdown put Nebraska ahead and Jeff Kinney's fourth score sealed a 35-31 win in the final minutes.
Q 28Which Oregon Trail landmark appears beside a covered wagon on Nebraska's 2006 state quarter?
Chimney Rock
Chimney Rock, a spire rising about 300 feet above the North Platte valley, was recorded in many emigrant journals; erosion and lightning have since left it shorter than the pioneers saw it.
Q 29What is Carhenge, near Alliance?
A Stonehenge replica built from old cars
A Stonehenge replica built from old cars: Jim Reinders and his family assembled the grey-painted vehicles to match Stonehenge's dimensions and dedicated it at the summer solstice in 1987.
Q 30How many cars make up Carhenge's circle?
39
39 vehicles make up the circle, about 96 feet across, with a Cadillac standing in for the heel stone; three foreign cars are buried on site beneath a mock epitaph.