Patriotic Trivia
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8correct to beat the crowd
This patriotic trivia quiz has 127 free questions with answers and covers the symbols and songs of the United States rather than just the Fourth of July. You will meet the flag (why 13 stripes, when the 50th star arrived, whether Betsy Ross really sewed the first one), a full Flag Day round on how June 14 became a holiday and the teacher who campaigned for it, the national anthem and the poem behind it, the Pledge of Allegiance and its 1954 rewrite, the Great Seal's eagle and its arrows, Uncle Sam, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and the songs America sings on holidays, from 'God Bless America' to 'Yankee Doodle'. It works for a Flag Day, Memorial Day or Veterans Day gathering, a classroom civics warm-up, a Fourth of July party round, or a citizenship-test practice session. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for kids; the rest climb toward the details only history buffs know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and primary sources such as the US Code and the Smithsonian, and each explanation adds one detail worth repeating.
30 of 127 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mission planted the first American flag on the Moon?
Apollo 11
Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could barely work the pole into the hard lunar soil, and Aldrin reported seeing the flag blown over by the engine blast when they lifted off.
Q 02The 50-star US flag was adopted in 1960 after which state joined the Union?
Hawaii
Hawaii became the 50th state in August 1959, only months after the 49th, so the 49-star flag was official for just one year before the 50-star design replaced it in 1960.
Q 03Which president ordered the 50-star flag on August 21, 1959?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower had approved a 49-star flag only that January; his second order of 1959 set fifty stars in nine staggered rows, and the new flag became official the following year.
Q 04In 1795 the flag grew to 15 stars and 15 stripes for Kentucky and which New England state?
Vermont
Vermont and Kentucky were the first states added after independence, and each got a star and a stripe; it is the only US flag with more than 13 stripes, because in 1818 Congress went back to 13 and added only stars.
Q 05Sea captain William Driver gave his ship's flag which nickname, now used for every US flag?
Old Glory
Old Glory: when Tennessee seceded, Driver had the flag sewn inside a bed coverlet to hide it, then carried it to the state capitol when Union troops took Nashville in 1862.
Q 06Who spread the story that Betsy Ross sewed the first Stars and Stripes from George Washington's sketch?
Her descendants
Her descendants spread the tale: grandson William Canby first told it to a Philadelphia historical society in 1870, nearly a century after the event, and no record from the time supports it.
Q 07Under the Flag Code, must a flag that touches the ground be destroyed?
No, that is a myth
No, that is a myth: the Flag Code says only that the flag should not touch the ground; burning is its preferred way to retire a flag too worn to be a fitting emblem.
Q 08The US Flag Code became public law in which year?
1942
The Flag Code became Public Law 77-623 on June 22, 1942, codifying guidelines from the 1923 National Flag Conference; it discourages using the flag in advertising or on cushions and handkerchiefs.
Q 09Which president designated June 14 as Flag Day by proclamation in 1916?
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson's proclamation of May 30, 1916 only 'suggested and requested' that communities mark June 14 with patriotic exercises; it created no legal holiday.
Q 10Which state was the first to make Flag Day a state holiday, in 1937?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania was the first state to make June 14, Flag Day, a legal state holiday, doing so in 1937, two decades after the 1916 presidential proclamation.
Q 11What was the profession of Francis Scott Key, who boarded a British ship to negotiate a prisoner's release?
Lawyer
Lawyer: Key had sailed out to win the release of Dr William Beanes, a physician friend seized by the British, and was kept offshore until the attack on Baltimore was over.
Q 12Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry during which war?
The War of 1812
The War of 1812: British warships bombarded Fort McHenry for about 25 hours on September 13-14, 1814, and Key, held on a truce ship in the harbor, saw the flag at dawn.
Q 13The tune of the national anthem was borrowed from a song written for a gentlemen's club in which city?
London
Q 21Which magazine first published the Pledge of Allegiance in September 1892?
The Youth's Companion
The Youth's Companion, a Boston family magazine, printed Francis Bellamy's pledge in its September 8, 1892 issue as part of its campaign to put a flag in every schoolhouse.
Q 22What does the Latin motto 'E pluribus unum' on the Great Seal mean?
Out of many, one
'E pluribus unum' means 'Out of many, one': thirteen colonies joined in a single nation. Proposed for the seal in 1776, it served as the unofficial national motto until Congress gave that title to another phrase in 1956.
Q 23On the Great Seal, what does the bird hold besides thirteen arrows?
An olive branch
London's Anacreontic Society, a club of amateur musicians, sang John Stafford Smith's tune as its club song; Key knew it well, having already set an 1805 song for naval heroes to the same melody.
Q 14Which president signed the 1931 law that gave the United States an official national anthem?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover signed the act in March 1931, after a campaign begun in 1918 by Ella Holloway, head of a Maryland patriotic society, and bills that Maryland congressman J. Charles Linthicum kept reintroducing.
Q 15The anthem's ballpark tradition is traced to a World Series during which war?
World War I
World War I: at Game 1 of the 1918 World Series a Navy band struck up the anthem during the seventh-inning stretch, and Red Sox infielder Fred Thomas, on furlough from the Navy, turned to the flag and saluted.
Q 16Which singer performed the wrong lyrics to the anthem before Super Bowl XLV in 2011?
Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera, singing at Super Bowl XLV in February 2011, replaced the 'O'er the ramparts we watched' line with a mangled repeat of the second line, 'What so proudly we hailed.'
Q 17Where has the huge Fort McHenry flag that inspired the national anthem been kept since 1964?
National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History has shown it since opening in 1964; the flag is about eight feet shorter than when it flew, because its owners snipped off pieces as souvenirs and gifts.
Q 18The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 to mark an anniversary of what?
Columbus's arrival in the Americas
Columbus's arrival in the Americas was the occasion: the magazine behind the pledge was selling flags to schools and tied its drive to the anniversary, hoping every schoolhouse would raise one that day.
Q 19Which two words did Congress add to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954?
Under God
Under God went in on Flag Day 1954; children had recited the pledge without it for 62 years, and until 1923 it did not even name the country, saying only 'my Flag'.
Q 20The straight-arm 'Bellamy' gesture for the Pledge was dropped in World War II because it resembled what?
The Nazi salute
Americans now place a hand over the heart instead.
An olive branch: the bird's head is turned toward it and away from the arrows, a sign that the nation prefers peace but stays ready for war.
Q 24Both sides of the Great Seal have appeared since 1935 on the back of which banknote?
The $1 bill
The $1 bill got the seal after Henry Wallace showed Franklin Roosevelt its little-used reverse in 1934; Roosevelt approved the design only on condition that the two sides swap places.
Q 25Which state's 2020 flag had to include 'In God We Trust'?
Mississippi
Mississippi retired the last state flag to carry the Confederate battle emblem in 2020; the law ordering a replacement barred that emblem and required the motto, and voters approved the magnolia design that November.
Q 26'In God We Trust' first appeared on US money in 1864 on which coin?
The two-cent piece
The two-cent piece, a bronze coin first struck in 1864, was the first to carry the motto; a Baptist minister had written to the Treasury in 1861 asking that coins recognise God, and Secretary Salmon P. Chase took up the idea.
Q 27Which animal officially became the national bird of the United States by an act of Congress in 2024?
Bald eagle
The bald eagle had been on the Great Seal since 1782, but an eagle collector, Preston Cook, found it had never been made official and pushed for the law that was signed in December 2024.
Q 28Which Founding Father told his daughter the turkey was 'a much more respectable bird' than the national emblem?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin made the crack in a 1784 letter to his daughter, grumbling that the bird in one design looked more like a turkey; he never publicly proposed the turkey as a national symbol.
Q 29Which animal became the national mammal of the United States in 2016?
American bison
The American bison became the national mammal in May 2016; millions once roamed the continent, but hunting had cut them to a few hundred by the late 1800s before the herds were rebuilt.
Q 30What is the national floral emblem of the United States?
The rose
The rose became the national floral emblem in 1986, when President Reagan signed the measure into law; Senator Everett Dirksen had campaigned for years to give the honour to the marigold instead.