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About This Quiz
You never know when you're going to need to know a random piece of knowledge. Whether you're auditioning for Jeopardy, playing bar trivia with co-workers or just playing the latest trivia app with your friends, general knowledge always comes in handy. You might need to calculate a tip at a restaurant, identify a brand logo, recognize a dangerous element or help a friend remember the name of a movie, and general knowledge will help you do that. At the very least, it's good to know that all the stuff you learned in school isn't going to waste.
So let's see what you got. Do you know the state and world capitals? Can you name the U.S. presidents? If you're that friend who knows everything about everything, this quiz will be a breeze for you. If you're that friend that knows nothing about nothing, this quiz will teach you more than you could've imagined. And if you're just looking to brush up on some general knowledge, we got you covered. In this day and age, there's no excuse for not knowing something. The answer to almost anything you could ever want to know is at your fingertips. Put your skills to the test and see if you can answer all these general knowledge questions.
Pepsi
Apple
Everybody agrees that Steve Jobs came up with the name "Apple," but how exactly he thought of it is anyone's guess. According to him, he was on a fruit diet and liked apples. Nevertheless, the company and the logo is one of the most famous around the world.
Unilever
Amazon
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Celine Dion
Cher
Taylor Swift
Madonna
Madonna burst onto the music scene in the '80s and is the best selling female musician of all time. She was known for her provocative image, and she consistently bucked the status quo throughout her career.
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Walt Disney
Mickey Mouse is one of the first characters Walt Disney created back in 1928. Today Mickey serves as the mascot of the Walt Disney Company, and he's one of the most famous fictional characters in the world.
Matt Groening
Dr. Seuss
Charles M. Schulz
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"Casablanca"
Even if you've never seen a black and white movie in your life, you've probably heard of this movie about Rick Blaine, his little bar in Casablanca, the piano player named Sam and that one time he spent in Paris.
"Schindler's List"
"Citizen Kane"
"Psycho"
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Boston Celtics
Los Angeles Lakers
Kobe Bryant is one of just two NBA players to have played at least 20 NBA seasons with the same team. He spent his entire career in LA. The only other player to do so is Dirk Nowitzki, who spent his whole career with the Dallas Mavericks.
Chicago Bulls
Charlotte Hornets
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Google
Twitter
Amazon
Facebook
With billions of accounts around the world, Facebook is one of the most influential companies on the planet. The social networking giant also owns Instagram and WhatsApp and is even creating its own digital currency.
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"Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"
"Jurassic Park"
"Jaws"
Steven Spielberg burst onto the scene with this horror epic that was revolutionary for its mechanical shark in the pre-CGI days of film. It was just his second feature film not made for TV, and he followed it up with classics like "E.T." and "Indiana Jones."
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John Lennon
Ringo Starr
Paul McCartney
Bon Jovi
Once upon a time, there were a couple of fifth members of the Beatles named Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe. They played together in Germany under a different name, but the Beatles we know of have always been a fab four.
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LeBron James
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan is considered the greatest basketball player of all time and deservedly so. He three-peated twice, and he very possibly would've won eight NBA championships in a row if he didn't retire and play baseball.
Kobe Bryant
Shaquille O'Neal
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"Scream"
"The Shining"
Stephen King wasn't too happy with Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of this horror classic, but the movie has gone down in history as a classic. Kubrick was insistent on changing minor details in an attempt to make the story his and King didn't take too fondly to that.
"Halloween"
"The Exorcist"
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Sting
Michael Jackson
Bob Marley
Bob Marley was one of the most famous musicians of all time and was undoubtedly the most famous reggae musician in the world. His song "One Love" was named the "Song of the Millennium" by the BBC, and he's one of the highest-earning artists of all time.
John Lennon
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OH2O
CD2O
H2O
One thing that stops hydrogen from escaping Earth's gravity is oxygen. Hydrogen that's escaping Earth can bind to an oxygen molecule and get stuck, and when two of them bind to one oxygen molecule, it creates water, which is H2O.
OOO
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Forrest Gump
The character of Forrest Gump was created by author Winston Groom in the 1986 novel "Forrest Gump," but Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg brought the character to life. His "box of chocolates" quote is one of the famous in cinema history.
Chuck Noland
Jimmy Dugan
Sheriff Woody
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Amazon
Pepsi
Unilever
AT&T
AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the world and deservedly so. It started back in 1885 and was founded by the guy who invented the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. In today's digital world, AT&T is one of the world's most influential companies.
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Eminem
Eminem has sold more than 220 million albums across the world, making him the best selling rapper by far. Kanye sits in second place with a bit more than 130 million albums sold, and legends like Jay-Z and Tupac barely break 100 million sold.
Macklemore
Jay-Z
Tupac
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McDonald's
The McDonald's golden arches are recognized around the world and are one of the greatest logos ever. They're frequently constructed high above highways and roads to be seen for miles and pull in drivers from all directions.
Wendy's
Subway
Burger King
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Jane Austen
William Shakespeare
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling couldn't have predicted Harry Potter would take the world by storm the way he did. She first thought of the character in the early 1990s and spent the better part of the decade crafting his story.
Stephen King
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"The Shining"
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Only three films have won Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and this is one of them. The most recent to do so was "Silence of the Lambs" in 1992, and the first one was "It Happened One Night" in 1935.
"Silence of the Lambs"
"It Happened One Night"
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Serena Williams
Serena Williams is just one grand slam title away from tying the record for most grand slams by a tennis player, which is held by Margaret Court. Serena has finished runner-up nine times and is still playing at the top of her game.
Venus Williams
Margaret Court
Monica Seles
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April 4, 1968
June 5, 1968
April 15, 1865
November 22, 1963
John F. Kennedy was the last U.S. president to be assassinated in office, but the fourth overall. Five years after his assassination, his brother, Robert, and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. The decade ended with Americans walking on the moon.
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Ian Flemming
James Bond is one of the world's most popular fictional characters, and he was created in 1952 by Ian Fleming, who worked as a spy in real life. Fleming spent more than a decade writing 14 novels which have been adapted countless times.
James Patterson
William Faulkner
Charles Dickens
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Carl Lewis
Mark Spitz
Jesse Owens
Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps has more medals than any other Olympic athlete. He has 23 gold medals, three silvers and two bronzes. His first Olympic games were the Millennial Games in Sydney, but he didn't win his first medal until four years later in Athens.
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Cher
Celine Dion
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston was known for being able to hit some of the highest notes in all of the music industry, and she's famous for several stand-alone performances like her rendition of the National Anthem at Super Bowl XXV in 1991.
Mariah Carey
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1969
American astronauts left for the moon on July 16, 1969, and landed on July 24, 1969. It was seven years after President JFK gave his "We Choose to Go to the Moon" speech. The first human-made object landed on the moon 10 years earlier.
1972
1963
1952
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William Howard Taft
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Woodrow Wilson
Everyone can remember FDR dropped an atomic bomb during WWII, but nobody remembers what the U.S. did during WWI. The country was led by Woodrow Wilson and remained neutral until 1917 when it declared war on Germany.
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$15
$5.50
$10
$7.50
To find 15% of any number, it's easiest to find 10%, split it in half and then add the two products. To find 15% of $50, just find 10%, which is $5, and then split $5 in half ($2.50) and add them together ($5 + $2.50 = $7.50).
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1938
Superman first appeared in "Action Comics" No. 1 in 1938, and he was written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster. A mint-condition copy of the comic sold for more than $3 million in an eBay auction in 2014.
1961
1893
1918
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1861
The first battle of the Civil War took place in 1861 at the Battle of Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter had been a hotbed for activity for the entire year. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces spent about 30 hours bombarding Union forces, forcing them to eventually surrender and the Confederates took over the area, starting the war.
1865
1855
1850
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Third Monday of February
Second Tuesday of November
Fourth Wednesday of April
Third Monday of January
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th, and the earliest day that the third Monday of January can fall on is the 15th. The latest is the 21st. MLK Day happens every year sometime between January 15th and 21st; the third Monday of January.
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1926
1942
1898
1912
The Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. It then spent the next two hours sinking and was at the bottom of the ocean on April 15, 1912. More than 2,200 people were aboard the ship and 1,500 people died when it sank.
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65 million years ago
The dinosaurs went extinct in one of the worst mass extinctions the Earth has ever seen. About 75% of all species went extinct, including all species of land dinosaurs. It was the last mass extinction on Earth.
100 million years ago
1 billion years ago
65 billion years ago
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1879
The smartest minds in math and science have always tried to explain the most complex topics in the most absurdly simple terms. Newton explained the force of gravity with three letters, and Einstein explained nuclear fusion with "E = mc2," which is probably the most famous equation in the world.
1924
1943
1867
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Harper Lee
"To Kill a Mockingbird" sits at the pinnacle of school literature in America. It is middle school literary canon. It was written by Harper Lee, and the character of Atticus Finch was introduced to the country in 1960.
Ernest Hemingway
Mark Twain
Toni Morrison
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1935
1860
1880
Helen Keller was born in 1880, and despite the illness that left her blind and deaf, she lived until the age of 88. Most people learned of her struggle and triumph from her autobiography. The story went on to become the award-winning play and film, "The Miracle Worker."
1920
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Nitrogen
Oxygen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe but not the most abundant element on Earth. It's so light that Earth's gravitational pull can't keep it on the planet, but when it's able to bond to oxygen, it creates water, which covers about 75% of the planet.
Helium
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Neymar
David Beckham
Cristiano Ronaldo
Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo are the only three non-Americans in the top 10 most followed Instagram users. The most-followed account is Instagram itself, but after that, it's Ronaldo. Messi and Neymar round out the top 10.
Lionel Messi
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Five
10
The Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and runs all the way through Louisiana and into the Gulf of Mexico. It touches eight other states on its path and is commonly recognized as the longest river in America.
15
20
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Nitrogen
Earth's atmosphere is almost 80% nitrogen and about 20% oxygen with trace amounts of a few other elements. Scientists have spent years trying to figure out where nitrogen on Earth comes from, but we do know it's different than nitrogen that comes from the Sun or comets.
Oxygen
Carbon
Neon
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1431
Joan of Arc was famously accused of heresy and cross-dressing and burnt at the stake in 1431. After she was executed, she was burnt again and then again, but her legacy has lived on. Today she is one of the most well-known figures from medieval times.
1775
1562
1215
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Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battle of Bunker Hill
Siege of Yorktown
American soldiers surrounded British troops at Yorktown for weeks before they finally surrendered. General Lord Cornwallis led British troops, and he surrendered on October 19, 1781, ultimately ending the war.
Battles of Saratoga
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