General Knowledge is the most played topic in Trivial by a wide margin, and the one new players start on. A round deliberately mixes subjects, so a geography question can follow a question about board games, and nobody at the table gets to coast on a specialty.
The questions below are a sample of what a medium-difficulty General Knowledge round looks like. Try to answer before opening each one; in the game you would have 20 seconds.
Which country has the most natural lakes in the world?
Canada
Estimates put more than half of the world's natural lakes in Canada. Ice-age glaciers scoured the hard rock of the Canadian Shield into millions of basins, which then filled with meltwater.
Which is the only country whose national flag is neither rectangular nor square?
Nepal
Nepal's flag is two stacked crimson pennants. Switzerland and Vatican City are the usual traps, but their flags are square, which the question allows. Nepal's constitution even spells out the geometric construction of the flag step by step.
What is the dot over a lowercase "i" or "j" called?
Tittle
It is a tittle. The phrase "jot and tittle" (the smallest details of a text) comes from the King James Bible, Matthew 5:18. A macron and a breve are real diacritics, but they mark vowel length, not the dot.
What was the first retail product ever scanned with a barcode?
A pack of Wrigley's gum
A 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit was scanned at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974.
Which country is generally regarded as the world's oldest surviving republic, traditionally dated to AD 301?
San Marino
San Marino traces its founding to a stonemason, Saint Marinus, in 301. The date is tradition rather than documented history, but its governing statutes from 1600 are among the oldest still in force anywhere.
How many hearts does an octopus have?
3
Two branchial hearts push blood through the gills, and a third, systemic heart pumps it around the body. The systemic heart actually stops while the octopus swims, one reason they prefer crawling.
What is the official national animal of Scotland?
Type the answer
The unicorn
The unicorn has been a Scottish royal symbol for centuries, and a pair of them still support the shield on the Scottish version of the royal coat of arms. In the UK-wide arms it faces the English lion.
Which soft drink was created in Germany in 1940, when wartime trade embargoes cut off Coca-Cola syrup?
Fanta
Max Keith, who ran Coca-Cola's German business, built a drink from what was available, including whey and apple pomace left over from cider making. The name came from "Fantasie", German for imagination.
Who was the first US president to live in the White House?
John Adams
Washington chose the site and approved the design, but the building was not ready until November 1800, near the end of John Adams's single term.
Which instrument did Benjamin Franklin invent?
Glass armonica
Franklin's 1761 armonica nests spinning glass bowls on a rod; the player touches the rims with wet fingers. Mozart and Beethoven both wrote music for it. The theremin came about in 1920.
What was the first music video played on MTV when it launched on August 1, 1981?
"Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles
A fitting opener for a channel about to change how music was sold. "Thriller" and "Take On Me" came later; "Money for Nothing" (1985) famously opens with the line "I want my MTV".
What is regarded as the first commercially published board game in the United States?
The Mansion of Happiness
Published in 1843 by W. & S. B. Ives of Salem, Massachusetts, it moved players along a spiral of virtues and vices toward a heavenly mansion. Milton Bradley's Checkered Game of Life followed in 1860.
General Knowledge rewards breadth over depth. If you are stuck on a multiple-choice question, rule out the option that is famous for something else: question writers love a plausible distractor, such as a flying squirrel in a question about flight.
Superlatives (the only, the first, the largest) are the backbone of this topic. They also attract myths, which is why a few popular "facts" are deliberately missing from this page.
In a room, every correct answer is worth 500 points plus a speed bonus of up to 500 more, so knowing it fast matters as much as knowing it. The full rules are on How to Play.
Every question on this page was first served in a real Trivial game, then pulled from the game's question bank, checked against the answer and rewritten with an explanation. Questions whose answer is disputed were left out. If you think one is wrong, email support@flayrlabs.com and we will fix it. The library overview explains the process in more detail.
Capitals, borders, rivers and the exceptions quiz writers love.
Elements, forces, planets and animals, with the reasoning behind each answer.
Empires, treaties and explorers, plus the gods and monsters of five traditions.
Play a General Knowledge round
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