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50 free Simón Bolívar trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Simón Bolívar freed six modern countries from Spain and died convinced he had 'plowed the sea'. This quiz follows the whole arc: the orphaned heir in Caracas raised by the enslaved Hipólita, the tutor Simón Rodríguez, marriage in Madrid and a wife lost to yellow fever, Napoleon's coronation and the oath on Rome's Monte Sacro, the failed first republics, the arrest of Miranda, the Cartagena Manifesto and the Decree of War to the Death, exile in Jamaica and Haiti, and the crossing of the Andes that ended at Boyacá. It then covers the empire he built and lost: Carabobo and Páez, the creation of Gran Colombia at Angostura, Sucre at Pichincha and Ayacucho, the Guayaquil meeting with San Martín, the dictatorship of Peru, the country that took his name, Manuela Sáenz and the night she saved his life, the break with Santander, and his death of tuberculosis at Santa Marta aged 47, in a borrowed shirt. Legacy questions ask about currencies, Bolivarian Venezuela, the exhumation and the stolen sword. Easy questions ask where he was born and which nation is named for him; the expert tier asks for dates, battles and generals. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Bolívar, Gran Colombia, Manuela Sáenz, Sucre and Bolivia, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on Latin American history, Venezuela and Colombia.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Simón Bolívar born in 1783?
Caracas
He was the youngest of four children of one of the richest creole families in Spanish America.
Q 02By what title is Bolívar known colloquially across Latin America?
El Libertador
The town of Mérida gave him the title first, in May 1813.
Q 03Which nation is named after Bolívar?
Bolivia
Its founders declared: 'If from Romulus, Rome; from Bolívar, it is Bolivia.'
Q 04Who raised the orphaned young Bolívar and was regarded by him as both mother and father?
The enslaved Hipólita
His father died when he was two and his mother when he was eight, both of tuberculosis.
Q 05Which Venezuelan educator and follower of Rousseau tutored the young Bolívar?
Simón Rodríguez
Years later he joined Bolívar on his Grand Tour and witnessed the oath in Rome.
Q 06In which city did Bolívar marry María Teresa del Toro in 1802?
Madrid
He was 18 and she 21; they sailed for Venezuela weeks later.
Q 07Of what did Bolívar's wife die less than a year after the wedding?
Yellow fever
He swore never to remarry and kept the vow.
Q 08Which event did Bolívar witness in Paris in May 1804?
Napoleon proclaimed Emperor of the French
A year later he saw Napoleon crowned King of Italy in Milan too.
Q 09Which famous naturalist did Bolívar meet at a Paris salon around 1804?
Alexander von Humboldt
Humboldt had just spent five years travelling through Spanish America.
Q 10In which city did Bolívar swear in 1805 to end Spanish rule in the Americas?
Rome
He took the oath on the Monte Sacro, where the plebs had once seceded from the city.
Q 11Which country did Bolívar visit on a diplomatic mission in 1810, meeting Wellesley?
Britain
He paid for the mission himself and persuaded Miranda to return to Venezuela with him.
Q 12What natural disaster devastated republican Venezuela on 26 March 1812?
An earthquake
Many saw it as divine punishment for declaring independence.
Q 13Which Venezuelan revolutionary did Bolívar help arrest for treason in July 1812?
Francisco de Miranda
He had capitulated to the Spanish; he died in a Cádiz prison in 1816.
Q 21In which Orinoco river town did Bolívar's congress meet in February 1819?
Angostura
The town is now called Ciudad Bolívar.
Q 22Which battle on 7 August 1819 routed the Royalists and opened the way to Bogotá?
Boyacá
Bolívar had just led his army across the Andes via the Pisba moors.
Q 23Which llanero chieftain fought beside Bolívar at Carabobo in June 1821?
José Antonio Páez
He controlled most of the western Llanos and later led Venezuela out of Gran Colombia.
Q 24Who was elected vice president of Gran Colombia under Bolívar at Cúcuta in 1821?
Q 14Which December 1812 document laid out Bolívar's reasons for the first republic's collapse?
The Cartagena Manifesto
It has been called one of the great documents of Latin American history.
Q 15Whom did Bolívar's notorious decree of June 1813 condemn to die?
Any Spaniard not aiding his forces
He annulled the decree in 1816 after his return from Haiti.
Q 16What was Bolívar's 1813 offensive from Cúcuta to the Venezuelan capital called?
The Admirable Campaign
Its success brought him the title of Liberator.
Q 17Which Spanish warlord's llanero 'Legion of Hell' overwhelmed the second republic in 1814?
José Tomás Boves
He died at the Battle of Urica in December 1814.
Q 18On which island did Bolívar go into exile in May 1815?
Jamaica
He escaped assassination there when a servant killed his paymaster by mistake.
Q 19Which Haitian president gave Bolívar money and arms in 1816?
Alexandre Pétion
In return Bolívar pledged to free every slave in the areas he occupied.
Q 20Which mixed-race general did Bolívar have executed by firing squad in October 1817?
Manuel Piar
The execution remains one of the most criticised acts of his career.
Francisco de Paula Santander
Their friendship later soured into open enmity and exile.
Q 25Which Argentine general met Bolívar at Guayaquil in July 1822, then went into exile?
José de San Martín
The two-day conference produced no agreement.
Q 26Which battle of 24 May 1822 secured Quito for the patriots?
Pichincha
It was fought on the slopes of the volcano overlooking the city.
Q 27Which title did the Peruvian congress give Bolívar on 10 February 1824?
Dictator of Peru
It was extended for another year in 1825.
Q 28Which battle of December 1824 ended Royalist power in Peru?
Ayacucho
The Spanish viceroy La Serna surrendered all his forces.
Q 29Which Venezuelan general, Bolívar's closest friend, was murdered near Pasto in 1830?
Antonio José de Sucre
Bolívar wrote to Flores asking him to avenge the murder; the victim had governed Bolivia from 1825 to 1828.
Q 30In which city did a congress declare Upper Peru an independent nation on 6 August 1825?
Chuquisaca
It named Bolívar president and asked him to write a constitution.