Hard trivia questions: 100 stumpers with answers
Tier 1 · HardWhich metal, once used for light bulb filaments, has the chemical symbol W?
These hard trivia questions test what you know, never trick wording. All 100 come in four tiers of 25, each with its rule at the top and a mix of subjects. Every answer lists what else to accept and one line on why it's true, so the host never has to argue.
Warming up a mixed group? Start with our general knowledge questions or bar trivia questions, then bring these out for the final round.
Tier 1: hard trivia questions and answers
The rule: One fact past a pub quiz. A well-read team should get most of these after a think.
1. Which metal, once used for light bulb filaments, has the chemical symbol W?Science
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Tungsten (also accept Wolfram)The W comes from wolfram, the element's other name, which German and Swedish still use.2. In which language did Hans Christian Andersen write “The Little Mermaid”?Literature
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DanishAndersen was from Odense, Denmark, and the tale came out in Copenhagen in 1837.3. Which river flows through the middle of Baghdad?Geography
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The TigrisIts twin river, the Euphrates, runs farther west.4. What is the boundary around a black hole called, past which not even light can escape?Space
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The event horizon (also accept Event horizon)Inside it, the speed needed to escape is faster than light, so nothing that crosses it comes back out.5. How many players does each side have on the field in rugby union?Sports
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15 (also accept Fifteen)Rugby league plays 13 a side, and rugby sevens, as the name says, 7.6. Which two-faced Roman god of doorways and beginnings gave January its name?History
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JanusHis two faces look back at the old year and ahead to the new one.7. What is the capital of Morocco?Geography
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RabatCasablanca is the bigger city, which is why so many teams write it down.8. What does USB stand for?Tech
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Universal Serial BusThe first version of the standard came out in 1996, to replace a tangle of different plugs.9. Which metal is the best conductor of electricity?Science
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SilverCopper comes a close second and costs far less, so it's what goes into wiring.10. Chili heat is measured in units named after which American pharmacist?Food
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Wilbur Scoville (also accept Scoville)He devised his test in 1912, diluting pepper extract until tasters could no longer feel the heat.11. What is the SI unit of electrical resistance?Science
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The ohmIt's named after the German physicist Georg Ohm, of Ohm's law.12. What is the capital of Brazil?Geography
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Brasília (also accept Brasilia)Planned and built from scratch, it replaced Rio de Janeiro as the capital in 1960.13. Which Italian composer wrote the operas “La traviata” and “Aida”?Music
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Giuseppe Verdi (also accept Verdi)La traviata premiered in Venice in 1853, and Aida in Cairo in 1871.14. Which architect designed the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris?Art
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I. M. Pei (also accept Pei, Ieoh Ming Pei)The Chinese American architect's pyramid opened in 1989 as the museum's new main entrance.15. The prime meridian, zero degrees longitude, runs through which part of London?Geography
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GreenwichAn 1884 conference in Washington picked the line through the Royal Observatory there.16. What is the largest country in Africa by area?Geography
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AlgeriaIt took the title in 2011, when South Sudan split from Sudan.17. What is a male honeybee called?Nature
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A drone (also accept Drone)Drones don't sting or gather food; their one job is to mate with a queen.18. Manchego cheese comes from which country?Food
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SpainIt's made from the milk of Manchega sheep in the La Mancha region.19. By Austrian rules, a true Wiener schnitzel is made from which meat?Food
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VealAustria reserves the name for veal; a pork version has to say so on the menu.20. In which city was the Titanic built?History
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BelfastThe Harland and Wolff shipyard there built it between 1909 and 1912.21. Which English monarch was on the throne when the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588?History
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Elizabeth I (also accept Queen Elizabeth I)She reigned from 1558 to 1603, the last of the Tudors.22. HTML, the code behind every web page, is short for what?Tech
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HyperText Markup LanguageTim Berners-Lee wrote the first version at CERN in the early 1990s, for the web's first pages.23. Which novel opens with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”?Literature
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A Tale of Two CitiesCharles Dickens published it in 1859, set in London and Paris at the time of the French Revolution.24. In snooker, how many points is a “maximum break” worth?Sports
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147 (also accept A 147)All 15 reds, each followed by the black, then the six colors in order: 15 × 8 + 27 = 147.25. Which instrument plays the note the whole orchestra tunes to before a concert?Music
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The oboeIts clear, steady tone carries over the other instruments, so it sounds the A.
Tier 2: tough trivia questions and answers
The rule: A specific fact. You know it if you've read about it, and a lucky guess rarely gets you there.
26. What is the smallest country in South America by area?Geography
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SurinameFrench Guiana is smaller, but it's part of France, not a country of its own.27. What is the only number whose English name has as many letters as its value?Language
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Four (also accept 4)F-O-U-R is four letters. Every other number's name is too long or too short.28. Which river forms much of the border between the US and Mexico?Geography
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The Rio Grande (also accept Río Bravo)Mexico calls it the Río Bravo del Norte; it marks the whole Texas border.29. Which German physicist's uncertainty principle says you can't pin down a particle's exact position and momentum at the same time?Science
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Werner Heisenberg (also accept Heisenberg)He published it in 1927, when he was 25.30. What is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer and gold called?Art
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Kintsugi (also accept Kintsukuroi)The golden seams stay on show, as part of the object's story.31. Which astronomer worked out the three laws of planetary motion, including that orbits are ellipses?Space
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Johannes Kepler (also accept Kepler)He published the first two laws in 1609 and the third in 1619.32. Which architect designed the spiral Guggenheim Museum in New York?Art
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Frank Lloyd WrightIt opened in October 1959, six months after he died.33. What is the world's largest landlocked country?Geography
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KazakhstanIt's the ninth-largest country of any kind.34. In which Central American country is English the official language?Geography
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BelizeIt was called British Honduras until 1973.35. The Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest written law codes, comes from which ancient city?History
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Babylon (also accept Babylonia)King Hammurabi ruled there in the 1700s BC; the best-known copy, carved on a tall stone slab, is in the Louvre.36. Which country was the first self-governing nation to give women the vote in national elections?History
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New ZealandThe law passed in 1893, and women voted in that year's November election.37. What is the most abundant metal in Earth's crust?Science
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Aluminum (also accept Aluminium)It's about 8 percent of the crust by weight; only oxygen and silicon are more common.38. The oldest known curling stone, engraved with the year 1511, was found in which country?Sports
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ScotlandThe Stirling Stone is kept at the Stirling Smith museum in Scotland.39. What is mochi, the Japanese rice cake, traditionally made from?Food
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Glutinous rice (also accept Sticky rice, Sweet rice, Mochigome)The steamed rice is pounded until it turns into a smooth, stretchy dough.40. The most prized mozzarella from Campania, Italy, is made from which animal's milk?Food
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Water buffalo (also accept Buffalo)Mozzarella di Bufala Campana is a protected name for cheese made from buffalo milk.41. Besides Pompeii, which Roman town did Mount Vesuvius bury in AD 79?History
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Herculaneum (also accept Stabiae, Oplontis)Herculaneum was buried deeper, so wooden beams and even food survived.42. In George Orwell's “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, Winston Smith lives in which superstate?Literature
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OceaniaThe other two superstates in the novel are Eurasia and Eastasia.43. How many symphonies did Beethoven complete?Music
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Nine (also accept 9)The Ninth premiered in Vienna in 1824, when he was almost completely deaf.44. Which programming language, released by Sun Microsystems in 1995, was first called Oak?Tech
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JavaJames Gosling's team named it after an oak tree outside his office, then renamed it before launch.45. What is the only marsupial native to the US and Canada?Nature
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The Virginia opossum (also accept Opossum, Possum)Mexico and South America have many opossum species; only this one ranges north of Mexico.46. What is the longest river in Asia?Geography
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The Yangtze (also accept Chang Jiang)It runs about 3,900 miles (6,300 km), from the Tibetan Plateau to the sea at Shanghai.47. Which company did Steve Jobs found after he left Apple in 1985?Business
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NeXTApple agreed to buy NeXT in December 1996, which brought Jobs back to Apple.48. Which particle did J. J. Thomson discover in 1897?Science
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The electronHe showed that cathode rays were made of tiny charged particles far lighter than any atom.49. Which Russian author wrote “Crime and Punishment”?Literature
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (also accept Dostoyevsky)It came out in 1866, first as a magazine serial.50. Cusco, high in the Andes of Peru, was the capital of which empire?History
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The Inca Empire (also accept Inca, Incas)It was the Inca capital until the Spanish conquest in the 1530s.
Tier 3: difficult trivia questions and answers
The rule: Specialist territory. A strong team gets some of these, and nobody gets all of them.
51. How many US states border Canada?Geography
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13 (also accept Thirteen)Alaska plus 12 more, counting Ohio and Pennsylvania, which meet Canada in Lake Erie.52. Which Spanish court painter made “Las Meninas” in 1656?Art
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Diego Velázquez (also accept Velázquez, Velazquez)He painted himself into the scene, standing at his easel.53. What did Jeff Bezos first name the company that became Amazon, in 1994?Business
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Cadabra (also accept Cadabra, Inc.)It was a nod to “abracadabra”, but over the phone his lawyer heard “cadaver”, so it changed.54. The sport of badminton is named after what?Sports
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Badminton House (also accept The Duke of Beaufort's estate)The Duke of Beaufort's country house in Gloucestershire lent the name, though nobody knows exactly when or why.55. In the word “laser”, what does the S stand for?Science
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StimulatedLaser is short for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.56. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended which long European war?History
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The Thirty Years' War (also accept The Eighty Years' War)The treaties also ended the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, so both count.57. Which Netherlandish painter created “The Garden of Earthly Delights”?Art
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Hieronymus Bosch (also accept Bosch)The three-panel painting, from around 1500, hangs in the Prado in Madrid.58. Which Shakespeare play opens with “Now is the winter of our discontent”?Literature
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Richard IIIThe future king says it in the play's very first line.59. Which city has been the capital of Myanmar since 2006?Geography
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Naypyidaw (also accept Nay Pyi Taw)The government moved there from Yangon, the country's largest city.60. Spain's national anthem, the Marcha Real, is unusual for what reason?Music
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It has no official lyrics (also accept No words)It's played as music only; attempts to give it official words have never been adopted.61. Who created the constructed language Esperanto in 1887?Language
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L. L. Zamenhof (also accept Zamenhof, Ludwik Zamenhof)An eye doctor in Warsaw, he hoped one easy shared language would help people get along.62. What do you call words spelled the same but said differently, with different meanings, like “bass” the fish and “bass” the guitar?Language
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Heteronyms (also accept Homographs)Homograph is the wider term for any two words with the same spelling, so it counts too.63. After diamond, which mineral is the hardest on the Mohs scale?Science
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Corundum (also accept Ruby, Sapphire)Corundum scores 9 to diamond's 10, and rubies and sapphires are both corundum.64. Which gas makes up almost 1 percent of the air we breathe?Science
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ArgonAt about 0.93 percent, it's the third most common gas in dry air, after nitrogen and oxygen.65. The word “daisy” comes from an Old English phrase meaning what?Nature
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Day's eyeThe flower opens at dawn and closes at dusk.66. What is the inside diameter of a regulation basketball hoop?Sports
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18 inches (also accept 45 cm, 46 cm)A ball is about 9.5 inches across, so nearly two could pass through side by side.67. What was Pepsi called when pharmacist Caleb Bradham first served it in 1893?Business
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Brad's DrinkHe renamed it Pepsi-Cola in 1898, at his pharmacy in New Bern, North Carolina.68. The stars in Subaru's logo show which star cluster?Business
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The Pleiades (also accept The Seven Sisters)Subaru is the Japanese name for the cluster.69. Starbucks takes its name from a character in which novel?Business
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Moby-DickStarbuck is the first mate of the Pequod in Herman Melville's 1851 novel.70. The grapefruit is a cross between the sweet orange and which other fruit?Food
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The pomelo (also accept Shaddock)It was first described in Barbados in the 1700s.71. Which British explorer commanded HMS Endeavour on its 1768 to 1771 voyage?History
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James Cook (also accept Captain Cook)The voyage charted New Zealand and the east coast of Australia.72. What is the southernmost national capital in the world?Geography
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WellingtonNew Zealand's capital sits about 41 degrees south, farther south than Canberra or Buenos Aires.73. Which pharaoh built the Great Pyramid of Giza?History
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Khufu (also accept Cheops)It was finished around 2560 BC.74. Triton, a moon that orbits backward, circles which planet?Space
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NeptuneIts backward orbit suggests Neptune captured it from the Kuiper Belt.75. What does the Latin phrase “per capita” mean, word for word?Language
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By heads (also accept By head, Per head)Caput is Latin for head, which is why per-person figures use the phrase.
Tier 4: really hard quiz questions and answers
The rule: Most rooms miss these. Each answer still lands with an “of course” once you hear it.
76. The element xenon takes its name from the Greek word for what?Science
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Stranger (also accept Foreigner, Foreign)William Ramsay and Morris Travers found it in 1898, hiding in liquefied air.77. Which palm tree has the largest seed of any plant?Nature
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The coco de mer (also accept Lodoicea, Double coconut, Sea coconut)It grows wild only on Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles, and one seed can weigh more than 10 kilograms.78. What is the smallest country on the African mainland?Geography
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The Gambia (also accept Gambia)It's a thin strip along the Gambia River, wrapped by Senegal on three sides; island Seychelles is smaller.79. Sears began in 1886 by selling what by mail?Business
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WatchesRichard Sears, a railroad station agent in Minnesota, sold a shipment of watches before he sold anything else.80. What is the national language of Bhutan?Language
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DzongkhaIt's written in the same script as Tibetan.81. Which country had the world's first female prime minister, in 1960?History
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Sri Lanka (also accept Ceylon)Sirimavo Bandaranaike took office when the country was still called Ceylon.82. What was the first internet domain name ever registered, in 1985?Tech
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Symbolics.com (also accept Symbolics)Symbolics, a computer maker in Massachusetts, registered it on March 15, 1985.83. Which composer's ballet “The Rite of Spring” caused an uproar at its 1913 Paris premiere?Music
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Igor Stravinsky (also accept Stravinsky)The pounding rhythms and the dancing shocked the audience, and the noise drowned out the orchestra.84. Which lake, nearly 2,000 feet deep, is the deepest in the US?Geography
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Crater LakeIt fills the collapsed top of a volcano in Oregon, and sonar puts its deepest point at 1,943 feet.85. Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World gave English its word for a grand tomb?History
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The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (also accept The Mausoleum, The Tomb of Mausolus)It was built for Mausolus, a ruler in what is now Bodrum, Turkey.86. Who painted “The Arnolfini Portrait” in 1434?Art
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Jan van Eyck (also accept Van Eyck)He signed the wall above the mirror in Latin: “Jan van Eyck was here, 1434.”87. What was the name of the first web browser?Tech
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WorldWideWeb (also accept Nexus)Tim Berners-Lee wrote it in 1990, then renamed it Nexus so it wouldn't be confused with the web itself.88. What is the only venomous primate?Nature
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The slow loris (also accept Slow lorises)It mixes oil from a gland on its upper arm with saliva to make a toxic bite.89. Bobotie, spiced minced meat baked under an egg topping, is a classic dish of which country?Food
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South AfricaIt came with Cape Malay cooks and is often served with yellow rice.90. Which keyboard symbol is also called an octothorpe?Language
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The # sign (also accept Hash, Pound sign, Number sign)Bell Labs engineers are credited with the word, from when # joined the touch-tone phone keypad.91. Which element's name comes from the Greek word for violet?Science
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IodineWhen it's heated, it gives off a violet vapor.92. Nelson Mandela's first language, known for its click consonants, is what?Language
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Xhosa (also accept isiXhosa)It's one of South Africa's official languages, and the X is itself one of the clicks.93. What does the first J stand for in J. R. R. Tolkien?Literature
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JohnHis full name was John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; friends and family called him Ronald.94. Which element did Marie Curie name after her home country?Science
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PoloniumShe and Pierre Curie found it in 1898, when Poland was split between three empires and had no state of its own.95. In polo, what is each period of play called?Sports
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A chukka (also accept Chukker)A match has four to eight chukkas, each about seven minutes long.96. Before it was Sony, the company was founded in 1946 under what name?Business
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Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (also accept Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, Totsuko)The founders switched to Sony in 1958, a name that would be easy to say anywhere.97. The word “quarantine” comes from the Italian for how many days?Language
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Forty (also accept 40)Venice made ships from plague-hit ports wait quaranta giorni, 40 days, before anyone landed.98. Joseph Conrad wrote “Heart of Darkness” in English. What was his first language?Literature
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PolishHe didn't become fluent in English until his twenties.99. Which is the only country with coastline on both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf?Geography
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IranThe Caspian lies along its north, and the Gulf along its south.100. Which is the only South American country with coastline on both the Pacific and the Caribbean?Geography
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ColombiaPanama has both too, but it's in Central America.
5 tiebreaker questions: closest number wins
Nobody knows these exactly, so one of them always settles a tie. Each team writes a number; the closest answer takes the game.
1. How fast does light travel in a vacuum, in miles per second?
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About 186,282 miles per secondThat's 299,792 kilometers per second, fast enough to circle Earth about seven and a half times in a second.2. How many years did Queen Victoria reign?
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63 yearsFrom June 1837 to January 1901.3. In what year did William Shakespeare die?
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1616He died in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1616, aged 52.4. How tall is the Statue of Liberty from the ground to the tip of the torch, in feet?
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305 feetThe National Park Service gives 305 feet 1 inch, pedestal and foundation included.5. How many countries share a land border with China?
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14That ties China with Russia for the most land neighbors of any country.
How to make any trivia question harder
Six moves turn a question everyone knows into one only a few teams get.
- Ask for the number, not the name. “Who wrote Frankenstein?” becomes “How old was Mary Shelley when Frankenstein was first published?” (20.)
- Ask for the second one. “What is the largest ocean?” becomes “What is the second-largest ocean?” (The Atlantic.)
- Ask about the less famous one. “Who is on the US $1 bill?” becomes “Who is on the $2 bill?” (Thomas Jefferson.)
- Ask what it was called before. “What is the capital of Ghana?” becomes “What was Ghana called before independence in 1957?” (The Gold Coast.)
- Ask for the whole set. “Name a Beatle” becomes “Name all four Beatles.” (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.)
- Score by closeness. For any number answer, give 2 points for exact, 1 point for the closest team. Nobody leaves a hard question blank when a near miss still scores.
For a whole evening, see how to host a trivia night. For more, try our Trivial Pursuit-style questions, critical thinking questions or, for a lighter round, funny trivia questions.
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