Note, however, that doesn't mean the hardest trivia questions. It’s remarkably easy to come up with dozens of hard trivia questions that require knowledge too obscure to answer -- or to be any fun. We’ll share a few examples of bad trivia questions below for reference.
One secret to creating great (and fun) trivia questions that aren't too challenging is to come up with ones that can have more than one correct answer. That way, you allow people to plumb the depths of their knowledge, and find not only the right answer but also enjoy that boost of self-confidence that comes with getting it right.
And really, when you’re having a trivia night with friends, isn’t that more important than stumping everyone? If you agree with that sentiment, then, by all means, avoid questions like those found in the first segment
Skip ahead:
- Hard Trivia Questions About American History
- Hard Trivia Questions About Geography
- Hard Trivia Questions About The Human Body
- Hard Trivia Questions About Sports
- Hard Trivia Questions About World War II
- Hard Trivia Questions About Everything Else!
Examples of Bad Trivia Questions for Your Game Night
Here are five examples of trivia questions that are too difficult to be considered fun. Why? Because they are almost surely unanswerable by most players. Thus, they risk leaving people feeling as if they came up short.
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1. What is the capital of Togo? (It’s Benin, but unless players have prepared specifically for geography, this is probably too obscure.)
2. What is the third-tallest mountain on Earth? (It’s Kangchenjunga, in the Himalayas, in the border region between Nepal and India. However, almost no one is going to readily answer that.)
3. What is the 10th decimal digit of pi? (It’s 5, but people who can recite pi to 3.14159, a standard number of digits recalled, will feel they perhaps should have known.)
4. Who was Teddy Roosevelt’s first lady? (It was Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, but this is a “gotcha” question, because it's rather obscure, and because she wasn't his first wife.)
5. Name five former U.S. secretaries of state. (There are plenty to name, but this question asks for too many responses to be much fun!)
Now, let’s move on to some great hard trivia questions.
Hard Trivia Questions About American History
These questions have a single correct answer. Plus, U.S. history is a subject in which most American citizens can be expected to have at least some grounding.
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1. What is the oldest European-founded city in the United States? (St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565)
2. Name all four U.S. presidents who were assassinated while in office. (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy)
3. In which war did the most Americans die? (the American Civil War, in which an estimated 620,000 men, or 2 percent of the U.S. population at the time, lost their lives)
4. In what year did the first Ford Model T sell? (1908)
5. Who was the first U.S. president to appear on television? (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on April 30, 1939, during the opening session of the New York World's Fair)
6. What does the middle initial "S" stand for in U.S. President Harry S. Truman's name? (This is a little tricky. Truman had no middle name. His parents gave him the middle initials as a compromise to honor both grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young)
Hard Trivia Questions About Geography
Most of these have multiple correct responses, which is a great way to make a hard trivia question a bit easier to field. And it's more fun for a wider group of participants.
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1. In what state is the tallest mountain in the continental United States? (California)
2. Name two of the five deepest points in the world’s oceans. (Mariana Trench, Puerto Rico Trench/Milwaukee Deep, Java Trench, South Sandwich Trench, Molloy Hole)
3. Name five countries whose names begin with the letter G. (Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana)
4. What is tallest mountain in Australia? (Mount Kosciuszko)
5. What is the longest river in Europe? (Volga)
6. Which country's flag features a dragon? (Three possible answers: Bhutan, Malta or Wales)
Hard Trivia Questions About the Human Body
These questions can be fun with players of different ages. Kids often will know more about the human body than adults do, because they more recently learned about it.
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1. Name the three bones found in the inner ear. (Hammer, anvil, stirrup)
2. How many total chromosomes does a human cell have? (46 – 23 pairs, but 26 total)
3. What is the second-biggest organ in the human body? (Liver)
4. Name four types of bone found below your pelvis. (Femur, patella, tibia, fibula, tarsals, metatarsals, phalanges)
5. Does an average head of full hair have about 1,000, 7,500, 10,000 or 15,000 hairs? (10,000)
Hard Trivia Questions About Sports
These questions mostly have single answers, as statistics are such an important part of sports.
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1. Which sport is older, basketball or American football? (Football)
2. In which decade was baseball’s first perfect game thrown? (1880s)
3. Name five positions on a soccer/football team. (Goalkeeper, sweeper, center back, full back, defensive midfielder, central midfielder, attacking midfielder, wing back, winger, striker, forward)
4. This Major League Baseball team (currently) has the second-most World Series wins. (Cardinals, 11)
5. Who (currently) holds the all-time point record in the National Basketball Association? (Kareem Abdul-Jabar, 38,387)
6. In which year was the first football World Cup held? (1930)
Hard Trivia Questions About World War II
What can we say? People love trivia about the Second World War.
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1. On what day did Nazi Germany invade Poland? (Sept. 1, 1939)
2. Name three European countries that remained neutral during World War II. (Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. On what date was victory declared in Europe? (May 8, 1945)
4. Name three types of American World War II fighter planes. (P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-38 Lightning, P-40 Warhawk, F4 Corsair, F6 Hellcat, P-63 Kingcobra, etc.)
5. What was the deadliest battle of World War II? (Battle of Stalingrad, with approximately 2 million casualties)
Hard Trivia Questions About Everything Else!
Sometimes, it's more fun to take a wide-open approach. So here are 10 more great trivia questions from all sorts of topic areas.
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1. How many legs does a centipede have? (30)
2. Name one of the only African countries that were never colonized. (Ethiopia and Liberia)
3. How many humps does a dromedary camel have? (One)
4. Who was the youngest U.S. president ever? (Teddy Roosevelt, at 42)
5. In which decade were the first artificial Christmas trees manufactured? (1930s)
6. What is the hardest natural substance on Earth? (Diamond)
7. What is the best-selling album of all time? (Michael Jackson’s Thriller)
8. Who was the youngest British prime minister ever? (William Pitt the Younger, at 24)
9. What is the only mammal that is fully covered in scales? (Pangolin)
10. Who was the first Disney princess? (Snow White)
The 3 Most Overrated Personal Development Habits
“How to Do Everything You’ve Ever Wanted in Half the Time and with Less Effort”
The personal development sphere is known for its rather sensational claims, even if a lot of it really does work.
However, there are some personal development habits that are pretty overrated, be it something that’s preached to be the perfect productivity vehicle for all or an exercise that isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems.
It’s important to work on yourself but it’s also important to know what the truth is. And, with the advent of digital media, it’s become harder to tell between what’s real and what’s marketing.
Here are the most overrated development habits:
1. Meditation isn’t a panacea
As someone who has taught meditation for several years, I can attest to its power.
Sometimes, that power appears almost mystical in nature. However, images abound of blissed-out 20-somethings sitting serenely on top of a giant freaking hill.
How they get there apparently with full makeup and without breaking a sweat we’ll never know but one thing is for certain: this, often, isn’t what meditation feels like (and, no, I don’t advise you to climb a hill or mountain just to meditate).
Sometimes, meditation is great and truly instills in you a sense of peace and serenity. However, often, it feels like you’re being dragged out of your own skin.
The purpose of meditation is the realization of truth, much in the same way that a scientist studies the connection between basic elements of reality to find out how things work.
First and foremost, the realization of truth requires you get past yourself and that means overcoming years of subconscious programming and an internal dialogue that is often almost villainous in nature. So, when you sit down to meditate you have to deal with a lot of crappy things that rise up from below the surface including past trauma and issues of low self-worth.
But more than just the fact that meditation isn’t this perfectly wonderful experience, it isn’t a panacea.
Do a quick search online and you’ll find pages of articles on the benefits of meditation, the first and most prominent of which have a laundry list of positive effects. But everyone responds differently to meditation itself and each meditation style. While some might find serenity, others find nothing but struggle. Plus, some of the purported benefits, depending on where you read, are outright myth.
The practice is always worthwhile, more worthwhile than almost anything else you can do for your mental well-being, but it’s not always easy and it’s not some perfect cure for all of life’s ailments.
2. Rising early isn’t best for everyone
One of the most popular ideas in modern personal development culture is that of rising early. Early rising, many will tell you, is the meditation of productivity.
Wake up an hour or two earlier and you’ll evolve into a higher lifeform, one which doubles its speed and amplifies its mental faculties several times over. At least, that’s what most articles online make it sound like.
Waking up early is said to not just give us some extra time each morning but offer a perfect kind of solace, the ideal environment for productivity and creative thinking.
And it’s hard to argue against when countless big-thinkers and notable authorities rep the habit and said benefits, from Tony Robbins to Oprah Winfrey and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
However, the problem is the assumption that just because something works for others that you admire or would like to emulate the success of, it will work for you.
But there’s ample anecdotal evidence that, if you take the time to look around, some people just work better as night owls.
I’ve done both and even purposely shifted between the two to study the effects on my body and mind. And I can say from personal experience that both have their benefits and drawbacks.
All you can is test out each and see what feels better for your own body and mind and, most specifically, how they affect your productivity and creative thinking.
3. Making personal development too much about you
Personal development is about improving, well, yourself. In case you didn’t already know that.
However, one of the most prevalent mistakes is to make your own personal development all about making yourself better isolated from the rest of the world.
In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about the habit of making personal development only about yourself and ignoring how effectively you perform with others.
The pursuit of personal excellence isolated from others is a somewhat egotistical fantasy as true progress requires that you work closely with others at almost every stage of your development.
Sure, there are domains and skills which require strictly self-improvement in terms of your own individual productivity (perhaps more than ever), such as focus and maximizing your ability to tune into your creative voice.
However, you can’t accomplish any great goal or dream on your own and the better you work together with others, from your communication to collaboration, the more likely you are to be successful. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if you don’t work well together with others and work to improve your ability to do so, you’ll be severely handicapped.