100 General Knowledge Quiz Questions & Answers (2026)

💡 From the Latin word "Aurum". Gold's symbol Au has been used since the periodic table was standardised.

💡 Babies are born with around 270–300 bones, but many fuse together as we grow. Adults have 206 bones.

💡 Light travels at approximately 300,000 kilometres per second — fast enough to circle the Earth 7.5 times in one second.

💡 Jupiter is so massive that all other planets could fit inside it. It also has at least 95 known moons.

💡 Plants absorb CO₂ and water, and using sunlight produce glucose and oxygen — the oxygen we breathe.

💡 Mitochondria generate most of the cell's supply of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), used as a source of chemical energy.

💡 Diamond scores 10 on the Mohs hardness scale — the maximum. It is a form of carbon with atoms arranged in a crystal structure.

💡 Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes — 22 autosomal pairs and 1 pair of sex chromosomes (XX for female, XY for male).

💡 Earth's atmosphere is approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases including argon and CO₂.

💡 Mars appears red because its surface is covered in iron oxide (rust). It has the largest volcano in the solar system — Olympus Mons.

💡 Not Sydney or Melbourne — Canberra became Australia's capital in 1913 as a compromise between the two rival cities.

💡 The Nile in Africa stretches approximately 6,650 km and flows northward through 11 countries before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea.

💡 Russia covers approximately 17.1 million km² — nearly twice the size of the next largest country, Canada.

💡 Vatican City covers just 0.44 km² and has a population of around 800 people. It is an independent city-state within Rome.

💡 The Pacific Ocean covers approximately 165 million km² — larger than all the world's landmasses combined.

💡 Not Toronto or Vancouver — Ottawa has been Canada's capital since 1857. It is located in the province of Ontario.

💡 Antarctica is technically the world's largest desert at 14 million km². The Sahara is the largest hot desert.

💡 Canada has over 2 million lakes, containing approximately 60% of the world's fresh surface water.

💡 Everest (8,849 m) straddles the border of Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It was first summited in 1953.

💡 Not Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo — Brasília became Brazil's capital in 1960, replacing Rio de Janeiro.

💡 WWII ended in 1945 with Germany's surrender on 8 May (VE Day) and Japan's surrender on 15 August (VJ Day), formally signed on 2 September.

💡 Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the Moon on 20 July 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission. Buzz Aldrin followed shortly after.

💡 Carthage, a powerful ancient civilisation, was located near modern-day Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, in North Africa.

💡 Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, commissioned by Pope Julius II. The "Creation of Adam" is its most famous scene.

💡 The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, marking the end of the Cold War era and leading to the reunification of Germany in 1990.

💡 Margaret Thatcher served as UK Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, the longest-serving PM of the 20th century.

💡 The Mongol Empire, founded by Genghis Khan in 1206, became the largest contiguous land empire in history at its peak.

💡 India gained independence on 15 August 1947, following the Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament.

💡 The RMS Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic, resulting in the loss of over 1,500 lives.

💡 Cleopatra VII was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. She formed alliances with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

💡 Each team has 11 players on the pitch, including a goalkeeper. Substitutes wait on the bench.

💡 Brazil has won the World Cup five times: 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002 — more than any other nation.

💡 A slam dunk occurs when a player jumps and forcefully pushes the ball down through the basket from above the rim.

💡 The four Grand Slams are: the Australian Open, the French Open (Roland Garros), Wimbledon, and the US Open.

💡 Qatar hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, making it the first Middle Eastern country to do so. Argentina won the tournament.

💡 A maximum break of 147 requires potting all 15 reds each followed by the black, then all the colours in order. Also known as a "147".

💡 American swimmer Michael Phelps won 23 Olympic gold medals across four Olympic Games (2000–2016).

💡 The marathon distance of 42.195 km was standardised at the 1908 London Olympics.

💡 LBW is a method of dismissal where the ball hits the batsman's body (usually the leg) instead of the bat and would otherwise have hit the stumps.

💡 Real Madrid has won the UEFA Champions League / European Cup a record 15 times as of 2024.

💡 The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 while working at CERN. It is distinct from the internet itself.

💡 Android was developed by Android Inc., which was purchased by Google in 2005. It launched as a public mobile OS in 2008.

💡 Artificial Intelligence refers to machines or software that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

💡 Apple was co-founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on 1 April 1976. Wozniak designed the original Apple I computer.

💡 The CPU is often called the "brain" of a computer. It executes instructions from programs by performing arithmetic, logic, control, and input/output operations.

💡 Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone on 9 January 2007 at Macworld Expo. It went on sale on 29 June 2007.

💡 HTML is the standard language for creating web pages. It was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and first published in 1993.

💡 Twitter — now rebranded as X — introduced 280-character tweets in 2017, doubling the original 140-character limit.

💡 JavaScript runs in virtually every web browser and is essential for interactive web development. Node.js also allows it to run server-side.

💡 GPS is a satellite-based navigation system developed by the US Department of Defense. It uses at least 24 satellites to provide location data.