American presidents turn up in British quizzes more often than the geography
would suggest, partly because the material is so well suited to question
setting: forty-odd names, each with a number, a party, a set of dates and a
manner of leaving office.
The numbered list
Presidents are the one political sequence that is habitually asked by
ordinal — "who was the sixteenth president?" — which no British quiz does with
Prime Ministers. The first ten and the last fifteen carry nearly all of it, plus
Lincoln at sixteen and the handful in between who are famous for one thing.
The record questions are the reliable core: the youngest elected (Kennedy)
and the youngest to hold office (Roosevelt), the only one to serve more than two
terms, the only one to serve non-consecutive terms, the four who were
assassinated, the ones who died in office of natural causes, the only one to
resign, and the only one never elected to either the presidency or the
vice-presidency.
Before and after the White House
Setters like the biography either side of the office: who was a general, who
was an actor, who was a peanut farmer, who appeared on which banknote, and which
presidents are on Mount Rushmore — that last being one of the most-asked
questions in the whole category, and one people routinely get three-quarters
right.
Adjacent material worth having: the
Cuban missile crisis,
Prohibition,
the space race and
the Boston Tea Party, all of which
get asked as presidential questions as often as historical ones. The British
equivalent is
UK Prime Ministers.
1st US President?
Answer George Washington (1789)
40th US President (former actor)?
Answer Ronald Reagan
16th US President?
Answer Abraham Lincoln
44th US President?
Answer Barack Obama
37th US President (resigned)?
Answer Richard Nixon
35th US President?
Answer John F. Kennedy
Who was US President (Democrat), 1993–2001?
Answer Bill Clinton
32nd US President (four terms)?
Answer Franklin D. Roosevelt
26th US President (Teddy)?
Answer Theodore Roosevelt
Who was US President (Democrat), 1829–1837?
Answer Andrew Jackson
Peanut farmer who became President?
Answer Jimmy Carter (39th)
Who was US President (Republican), 2017–2021 · 2025–?
Answer Donald Trump
Who was US President (Democrat), 1945–1953?
Answer Harry S. Truman
Who was US President (Republican), 1953–1961?
Answer Dwight D. Eisenhower
First President to live in the White House?
Answer John Adams (1800)
Which two Presidents died on 4 July 1826?
Answer John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
Who was US President (Democrat), 1913–1921?
Answer Woodrow Wilson
3rd US President (wrote the Declaration)?
Answer Thomas Jefferson
Who was US President (Republican), 1929–1933?
Answer Herbert Hoover
Who succeeded Nixon (never elected as P or VP)?
Answer Gerald Ford
Who signed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, admitting Maine (free) and Missouri (slave) states?
Answer James Monroe (prior to that there were 11 free and 11 slave states. Admission of Maine and Missouri maintained the balance).
Who was US President (Republican), 2001–2009?
Answer George W. Bush
Who was US President (Republican), 1989–1993?
Answer George H. W. Bush
Only President to serve two non-consecutive terms (until Trump)?
Answer Grover Cleveland (22nd & 24th)
Shortest-serving President?
Answer William Henry Harrison (31 days, 1841)
Who was US President (Democrat), 1837–1841?
Answer Martin Van Buren
Who was US President (Democrat), 1853–1857?
Answer Franklin Pierce
Who was US President (Republican), 1897–1901?
Answer William McKinley
Who was US President (Republican), 1923–1929?
Answer Calvin Coolidge
Who succeeded Lincoln?
Answer Andrew Johnson