270 General Knowledge Questions and Answers
Are you daring enough to answer our set of general knowledge questions? They’ll challenge your intellect and put your knowledge to the test. You can even share them with your friends. After all, as Aristotle pointed out, there’s nothing better than challenging the intellect with humility. It means we can reflect and learn what we don’t know.
We’re all notably wise in certain areas of general knowledge and not in others. For instance, some of us love art but know little about politics. Then, there are those who adore geography but don’t know much about astronomy.
In the following list, you’ll find questions from all kinds of disciplines, all with the specific purpose of increasing your general knowledge.
“What we know is a drop of water; what we ignore is the ocean.”
-Isaac Newton-
270 general knowledge questions and answers
General knowledge questions often act as daily intelligence tests, particularly the psycho-technical kinds. Indeed, it never hurts to challenge yourself occasionally. It helps you learn how knowledgeable you are and understand which disciplines you need to delve into a little more.
Knowledge demands time, which is what you should seek in your every day if you want to enrich yourself intellectually. You can make a start by exercising your brain right now and expanding your general knowledge with the following questions.
1. Which is the closest star to the Earth?
Our next neighboring star is Proxima Centauri. It’s about 4.22 light-years from Earth.
2. Who was the author of the novel, Lolita, published in 1955?
Vladimir Nabokov.
3. In what year did John F. Kennedy die?
John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963, at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, Texas, United States.
4. What’s the national flower of Japan?
The chrysanthemum.
5. What’s a gecko?
A small reptile that lives in hot and dry climates. There are more than 800 species of geckos. They vary in size and color.
6. Which organ in the human body consumes the most energy?
The brain.
7. Which country has the most islands in the world?
Sweden. It has more than 220,000 islands.
8. What’s the official language of China?
Mandarin.
9. What happened on July 20, 1969?
Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.
10. What city did the Beatles come from?
Liverpool.
11. Who’s Jeff Bezos?
An American businessman and mogul, founder, and CEO of Amazon.
12. What’s the chemical formula of water?
H2O.
13. Who painted Nighthawks?
Edward Hopper.
14. Who discovered penicillin?
On September 15, 1928, the British scientist Alexander Fleming announced the discovery of penicillin.
15. In what year did the Chernobyl disaster occur?
The Chernobyl disaster struck a village in Ukraine in 1986.
16. In Greek mythology, who was the messenger of the gods?
Hermes.
17. Which planet in the solar system has the most moons?
Until October 2019, it was assumed that the planet with the most moons was Jupiter. However, just a few years ago Saturn was discovered to have 82 moons, compared to Jupiter’s 79.
18. What’s the longest river in the world?
The Nile is the longest and the largest river in the world.
19. What’s umami?
Umami is one of the five flavors that we can perceive, along with sweet, salty, acid or sour, and bitter.
20. How many teeth does an adult human have?
Most adults have 32 teeth. Among them, there are eight incisors, four canines, eight premolars, and 12 molars (this includes four wisdom teeth).
21. Who was the director of Marnie?
Alfred Hitchcock.
22. Who was the real father of electricity?
Although Thomas Edison was considered to have invented electricity, it was actually Nikola Tesla.
23. What famous Italian composer is said to have made a pact with the devil?
Niccoló Paganini. Legend has it that his mother had a dream in which the devil appeared to her to tell her that little Niccoló would be an extraordinary world-famous violinist. From then on, his father forced him to study music for ten hours a day.
24. What’s the Fibonacci sequence?
The Fibonacci sequence is a sequence defined by recurrence. Fibonacci (Leonardo de Pisa) first made it known by using it to solve a problem. It states that each number is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers. It starts with the following 14 integers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233.
25. What colors make up the flag of Mexico?
Green, white, and red.
26. What’s a narwhal?
A cetacean that inhabits the seas of the Arctic and the north of the Atlantic Ocean. Its main characteristic is a large horn-like tooth that weighs ten kilograms and can measure up to 300 centimeters.
27. What planet is Spock, the Star Trek character, from?
Spock was from Vulcan.
28. What are homophones?
They’re words that sound the same but have different meanings. For example, bough and bow.
29. Who introduced the term collective unconscious?
30. Who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II?
Winston Churchill.
31. What’s coltan?
Coltan is one of the most precious minerals, essential in the manufacture of computer technologies. It’s the product of the union of two other metals: columbite and tantalite. 80 percent of coltan is found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s estimated that each kilo of this mineral costs the lives of two people.
32. What are mitochondria?
Mitochondria are eukaryotic cell organelles. They’re responsible for providing most of the energy necessary for cell activity.
33. Who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Gabriel García Márquez.
34. Who was the author of the theory on the origin of species?
The renowned English naturalist Charles Darwin.
35. What neurotransmitter is known as the particle of happiness?
Serotonin.
36. What’s the chemical symbol for gold?
AU.
37. Which artist made the song, Billie Jean popular?
Michael Jackson.
38. In which book does the Cheshire Cat appear?
The Cheshire Cat was a character created by Lewis Carroll. It appears in both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
39. What’s the capital of Iceland?
Reykjavik.
40. Where was Hadrian’s wall and what was its purpose?
Hadrian’s Wall was an old defensive construction built between 122 and 132 by the order of the Roman Emperor, Hadrian. Its purpose was to defend Great Britain from the attacks of the Picts’ tribes.
50. How many keys does a piano have?
Modern pianos have 88 keys, 36 black and 52 white.
51. What did Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discover?
Radioactivity.
52. Who enunciated the philosophical metaphor of the myth of the cave?
Plato.
53. Who wrote the book, Emotional Intelligence?
54. What’s Alexandria syndrome?
Alexandria syndrome is a strange condition in which a person acquires a purple or purplish shade of eyes.
55. What are cookies in the world of computing?
Cookies are files that are created by the websites we visit. These algorithms save information from our browsing histories to make our online experiences easier.
56. What was the name of the wife of Ulysses, the character in the Odyssey created by Homer?
Penelope.
57. In what year did Christopher Columbus arrive in America?
1492.
59. In which country did the mojito cocktail originate?
Cuba.
60. What movement does the knight make in chess?
It makes a move similar to an ‘L’ shape.
61. What’s a prime number?
A natural number greater than one that can only be divided by two numbers, the number one and itself.
62. What’s the largest country in the world?
Russia, with an area of 17,075,200 km².
63. What was Pangea?
A huge supercontinent that existed at the end of the Paleozoic era and the beginning of the Mesozoic era. It contained many of our planet’s countries.
64. In which country is the Atacama desert found?
Chile.
65. Who’s the best-selling solo music artist of all time?
Elvis Presley.
66. What was the name of the jail in which the Count of Monte Cristo, in the novel by Alexander Dumas, was imprisoned?
The Chateau d’If.
67. How long is a soccer game?
A soccer game lasts 90 minutes. It’s divided into two parts of 45 minutes each.
68. Which actress played Princess Leia in Star Wars?
Carrie Fisher.
69. Who created the character of Sherlock Holmes?
Arthur Conan Doyle.
70. Where in the body is insulin produced?
The pancreas.
71. Where’s the Taj Mahal?
Agra, India. The “Crown of the Palaces”, was built between 1631 and 1653.
72. Who painted The Virgin of the Rocks?
Leonardo Da Vinci.
73. In which country is K2, the second-highest mountain in the world?
Pakistan.
74. What did the god Thot represent in ancient Egypt?
Thot was the god of wisdom. He was also the inventor of writing, and patron of scribes, arts, and sciences.
75. What’s the fastest animal in the world?
The cheetah. It can reach 104 kilometers per hour.
76. What was Marilyn Monroe’s real name?
Norma Jeane Baker
78. Besides being a well-known actress, what else did Hedy Lamarr achieve?
In addition to being one of the most prominent actresses of the 1940s and 1950s, Hedy Lamarr developed spread spectrum technology, the forerunner of WiFi, during World War II. She also laid the technological foundations for GPS.
79. Who was René Magritte?
A Belgian surrealist painter. He was known for his ingenious works such as The Lovers and The Son of Man.
80. In what year did the Berlin Wall fall?
In November 1989.
81. Who composed The Marriage of Figaro?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
82. What’s the only mammal capable of flight?
The bat.
83. Who wrote the famous novel, Dracula, published in 1897?
Bram Stoker.
84. What NBA team did Kobe Bryant play for since 1996?
Kobe Bryant played for the Los Angeles Lakers up until his death.
85. What’s the Perseid shower?
It’s a meteor shower that’s most visible in August from the Northern Hemisphere. These flashes are produced by the materials of disintegrating comets entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
86. Who’s Elon Musk?
A physicist, entrepreneur, inventor, and tycoon. He co-founded PayPal, SpaceX, Hyperloop, SolarCity, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and OpenAI.
87. What does the brain do while we sleep?
The brain is extremely active when we’re asleep. It carries out tasks of detoxification, memory fixation, and repair.
88. Which planet is closest to the sun?
Mercury. It’s also the smallest (except for the dwarf planets).
89. How many valves does the human heart have?
It has four valves: the mitral, tricuspid, aortic, and pulmonary.
90. How many elements are in the periodic table?
Currently, the periodic table has 118 chemical elements. 26 of them were made in the laboratory.
91. Who was the director of the 1927 movie Metropolis?
Fritz Lang.
92. What was the name of the daughter of Sigmund Freud who dedicated her life to child psychology?
Anna Freud was the sixth and last daughter of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She oriented her career to the field of child psychology.
93. What’s the largest animal in the world?
The blue whale.
94. If you have acrophobia, what are you afraid of?
Acrophobia defines the fear of heights.
95. Which Stephen King novel is primarily set at the Overlook Hotel?
The Shining.
96. Where’s the smallest bone in the human body found?
The middle ear. It’s the stirrup bone. It’s between 2.5 and 3 millimeters long and belongs to a chain of ossicles.
97. How many hearts does an octopus have?
Three.
98. Who’s Thor’s brother according to Marvel?
Thor’s adoptive brother, according to Marvel Comics, is Loki.
99. What’s the name of the fictional spaceship that appears in the movie, Alien?
The spaceship was called The USCSS Nostromo.
100. What’s the technical name for cats’ whiskers?
The stiff little hairs that make up the whiskers of cats are also called vibrissae.
101. When did World War II end?
It ended with the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945.
102. What’s the only mammal that can’t jump?
An elephant.
103. What was the first novel to be written on a typewriter?
Tom Sawyer. It was written by Mark Twain and was published between 1876 and 1878.
104. Who painted the Sistine Chapel?
The vault of the Sistine Chapel is made up of a series of frescoes painted by Michelangelo.
105. Who first set foot on the Moon?
Neil Armstrong.
106. What’s the most expensive metal in the world?
Although some think it’s gold or platinum, it’s actually rhodium.
107. How many bones are in the human body?
An adult has 206, while newborns have around 300 bones.
108. What’s the largest ocean?
The Pacific Ocean, with a total area of 165,700,000 km².
109. What’s the best-selling album in history?
Michael Jackson’s, Thriller. It’s estimated that between 51 to 65 million copies have been sold.
110. What was the first metal that man used?
Copper.
111. What’s the name of the triangle with three equal sides?
An equilateral triangle.
112. How long is a lustrum?
Five years.
113. Who said, “I know that I know nothing?”
Socrates.
114. What’s the oldest surviving language in Europe?
It’s believed to be Basque, spoken in a part of Spain and France. Since it’s the only language in Europe that doesn’t have a clear relationship with any other, experts estimate that its origin predates that of the Iberian and Celtic peoples.
115. In what year did the French Revolution take place?
In 1789.
116. What country does coffee originate from?
Ethiopia, Africa.
117. What’s the largest organ in the human body?
The skin.
118. What’s the country with the fewest inhabitants in the world?
Vatican City.
119. What are the seven wonders of the modern world?
Chichén Itzá, The Colosseum, Christ the Redeemer, The Great Wall of China, Petra, The Taj Mahal, and Machu Picchu.
120. What animal is responsible for the most deaths every year?
As surprising as it may seem, the animal that causes the most deaths is the mosquito.
121. What’s the hardest mineral on the planet?
The diamond.
122. What was the first Disney movie?
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was released in 1937.
123. What medicine kills viruses?
None. Antibiotics kill bacteria.
124. Who wrote the book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes?
Stephen Hawking.
125. Who wrote Harry Potter?
J.K. Rowling.
126. What’s the name of the movement that rejects the exploitation of non-human animals?
Veganism.
127. Why do dogs wag their tails?
As a rule, they wag their tails when they’re excited. It can also be due to joy or nervousness.
128. In what year did the Spanish Civil War break out?
In 1936.
129. And in what year did it end?
In 1939.
130. Who rose to power after the end of this war?
The dictator, Francisco Franco.
131. What color is the flag of surrender?
White.
132. In what year did the Contemporary Age begin?
In 1789, with the French Revolution.
133. Who wrote The Stormlight Archive?
Brandon Sanderson.
134. Who was the first woman to travel into space?
Valentina Tereshkova.
135. Who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale?
Margaret Atwood.
136. What was the first video game?
A huge machine called Bertie the Brain. It was invented in 1950 and could play tic tac toe.
137. Who was Frankenstein, the monster or the scientist?
The scientist. The monster had no proper name.
138. Who stars in the video game saga, The Legend of Zelda?
The hero is called Link.
139. Who ordered the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
The US President, Harry S. Truman.
140. When did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine begin?
Putin launched the invasion on February 24, 2022.
141. What was the first artificial intelligence?
Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts created an artificial neural model in 1943. It was considered to be the first AI in history.
142. What playwright coined the phrase “For all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams”?
Pedro Calderon de la Barca.
143. When did the dinosaurs disappear?
65 million years ago.
144. Who were the first two people to circumnavigate the world?
Magellan and Elcano.
145. Which country was the first to allow women the vote?
New Zealand.
146. What mountain range separates Spain from France?
The Pyrenees.
147. Who painted The Scream?
Edvard Munch.
148. What protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation?
The ozone layer.
149. What kingdoms are living beings divided into?
Animal, plant, fungi, protist, and monera.
150. Who composed the Ninth Symphony?
Beethoven.
151. What are the states of matter?
Solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and Bose-Einstein condensate.
152. What celestial body ceased to be considered a planet in 2006?
Pluto.
153. What’s the longest bone in the human body?
The femur.
154. How many indigenous languages are there in Brazil?
More than 150.
155. What was the name of Charles Darwin’s ship?
The Beagle.
156. Who invented the submarine?
Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel.
157. In what year did Chile become independent from the Spanish Empire?
In 1818.
158. What was the capital of the Inca Empire?
Cuzco.
159. Who invented programming?
Ada Lovelace, the woman who developed the first algorithm.
160. What’s the national animal of Scotland?
The unicorn.
161. How many liters of water are necessary to produce a kilogram of meat?
Between 5,000 and 20,000 liters of water.
162. And for a liter of milk?
1,000 liters of water.
163. What’s the coldest place on Earth?
Antarctica.
164. What’s the capital of Mongolia?
Ulaanbaatar.
165. What countries make up the Commonwealth?
Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom.
166. Who wrote Don Quixote?
Miguel de Cervantes.
167. In which country is the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
Italy.
168. In which city is the Sagrada Família?
Barcelona.
169. Who’s considered to be the father of psychoanalysis?
170. Who was the famous King of Rock n Roll?
Elvis Presley.
171. What does FIFA mean?
Fédération Internationale de Football Association.
172. What’s cartography?
The science that studies maps.
173. What sport did Michael Jordan practice?
Basketball.
174. What’s the ‘third planet’?
The earth.
175. What’s the most populous country on Earth?
China. At the end of 2022, it had more than 1.411 million inhabitants.
176. What color represents hope?
Green.
177. What branch of biology studies animals?
Zoology.
178. For what artistic field are the Grammy Awards presented?
Music.
179. What’s the name of the national anthem of France?
“La Marsellaise”.
180. What was parchment made from?
Fur.
181. Where does a carioca come from?
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
182. Who goes to jail: the accused, the defendant, or the convicted?
The convicted.
183. Who wrote the novel, Ulysses?
James Joyce in 1922.
184. Which Jane Austen novel features Mr. Darcy??
Pride and Prejudice. It was first published in 1813.
185. What’s the highest-grossing movie to date?
Avatar. It was released in 2009.
186. What was the name of the first leader of the Soviet Union?
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, popularly known as Lenin.
187. What was the first ever movie?
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in 1895.
188. Who invented the printing press?
Johannes Gutenberg.
189. What part of the eye is sensitive to light?
The retina.
190. What’s the name of the largest satellite of the planet Saturn?
Titan. Its diameter is 5,150 km.
191. What’s the largest jungle in the world?
The Amazon. It covers countries such as Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
192. What country is known as the cradle of Western civilization?
Greece.
193. Who wrote the play, Hamlet?
William Shakespeare.
194. What’s the capital of Australia?
Canberra.
195. What’s the most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere?
Nitrogen.
196. What chemical element has the symbol Hg?
Mercury.
197. Who invented the light bulb?
Thomas Edison.
198. What city is known as the city of skyscrapers?
New York, United States.
199. What’s the most highly populated continent in the world?
Asia. It contains about 60 percent of the world’s population, about 4.6 billion people.
200. Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?
Marie Curie.
202. What’s the largest (by volume) river in the world?
The Amazon.
203. What’s the coldest ocean in the world?
The Antarctic Ocean.
204. Who wrote The Little Prince?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
205. What gas are hot air balloons filled with?
Helium.
206. Who wrote 1984?
George Orwell.
207. Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?
William Shakespeare.
208. What’s the name of the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci that hangs in the Louvre Museum?
The Mona Lisa.
209. What country is known as the land of Pharoahs?
Egypt.
210. Who painted Starry Night?
Vincent van Gogh.
211. What’s the largest musical instrument?
The organ.
212. In which country is the city of Dubai?
The United Arab Emirates.
213. What’s the name of the epic poem written by Homer?
The Iliad.
214. What’s the name of Ernest Hemingway’s book that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953?
The Old Man and the Sea.
215. Who was the first person to complete a solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world?
The Canadian sailor and writer, Joshua Slocum.
216. Who wrote the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?
Harper Lee.
217. Who wrote The Great Gatsby?
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
218. What’s the name of the liquid metal used in thermometers?
Mercury.
219. In which country is the city of Dublin?
Ireland.
220. Who was the famous Spanish painter who painted Las Meninas?
Diego Velazquez.
221. Who painted Guernica?
Pablo Picasso.
222. Who wrote The Metamorphosis?
Franz Kafka.
223. What star is closest to the sun?
Proxima Centauri. It’s located just four lightyears away.
224. What planet in the solar system has the shortest day?
Jupiter. A day lasts ten hours
225. What planet in the solar system has the longest day?
Venus. One day on Venus is equal to 243 days on Earth.
226. What’s the name of the natural satellite of the Earth that influences the tides?
The moon.
227. What’s the name of the famous theory that explains the origin of the universe?
The Big Bang Theory.
228. What’s the name of the periodic comet that approaches Earth every 76 years?
Halley’s Comet.
229. How long did the Hundred Years War last?
116 years.
230. What was the largest genocide of the modern era?
The Holocaust.
231. In what year did the Titanic sink?
In 1912.
232. Which character was known as the king of Macedonia?
Alexander the Great.
233. What’s the capital of Chile?
Santiago de Chile.
234. What’s the capital of Nicaragua?
Managua.
235. What are young rabbits called?
Kits.
236. What’s the strongest muscle in the human body?
The masseter. It can generate a force of approximately 90 kilograms in the bite.
237. What gas do plants release during photosynthesis?
Oxygen.
238. How many sides does a heptadecagon have?
Seventeen.
239. Where does olive oil come from?
Olives.
240. What’s the species name of humans?
Homo sapiens.
241. How much is the number pi?
3.1416.
242. In which continent did humanity emerge?
Africa.
243. In which country was the first atomic bomb used?
Japan (Hiroshima).
244. How many times has man been on the Moon?
Six, during the NASA Apollo program between 1969 and 1972.
245. In which country was Adolf Hitler born?
Austria. He was born in 1885 and died in 1945.
246. In what year did Napoleon die?
1821.
247. Where’s the White House?
In Washington D.C.
248. How many people are there in the world?
Approximately 7.870 million.
249. What’s the highest mountain in the world?
Mount Everest.
250. What’s the official currency of Japan?
The yen.
251. What’s the most populated city in the world?
Tokyo.
252. When did World War I start?
In 1914.
253. Who was Cleopatra?
The last queen of Egypt.
254. What particles is an atom made of?
Protons, neutrons, and electrons.
255. How many legs does a spider have?
Eight.
256. What’s the speed of light?
300,000 kilometers per second.
257. Which sense develops first?
The sense of smell.
258. What does DNA mean?
Deoxyribonucleic acid.
259. What’s the closest galaxy to ours?
Andromeda.
260. What’s the name of the pigment that gives skin its color?
Melanin.
261. What’s the most famous theory of Albert Einstein?
The theory of relativity.
262. How old is the Universe?
13.8 billion years.
263. How many vertebrae does the body of a human being have?
33.
264. Who painted The Last Supper?
Leonardo da Vinci.
265. What’s the name of the founder of Facebook?
Mark Zuckerberg.
266. What illness did Stephen Hawking have?
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
267. What’s the name of the process of raising a flag?
This procedure is known as hoisting.
268. What do omnivorous animals eat?
Plants and animals.
269. In which country is the University of Cambridge?
England.
270. What’s an oviparous?
An animal that hatches from an egg.
A good way of exercising the brain
We’re sure that you’ll have answered many of these general knowledge questions correctly. As for the rest, you might well find they’ll now remain in your memory for always.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (s.f.). The Sun. NASA. Consultado el 21 de diciembre de 2023. https://science.nasa.gov/sun/