175 true or false questions with answers
175 true or false statements, about half of them true and half fake, with the answer and a one-line explanation for each. They come from the game Fact or Fake in Quible. Many sound wrong and are true – that’s the point.
Questions 1 to 25
Lightning can strike the same spot more than once.
Answer
True. Lightning does come back. The Empire State Building takes about 25 hits a year.
The Great Wall of China is visible to the naked eye from the Moon.
Answer
False. It is as narrow as a country road. Barely visible from orbit, not at all from the Moon.
Honey can stay edible for thousands of years.
Answer
True. Honey from Egyptian tombs was still edible. Little water, plenty of acid, nothing spoils.
Bats are blind.
Answer
False. Every bat species can see. Some see better than we do at dusk.
An octopus has three hearts.
Answer
True. Two gill hearts and one body heart. Its blood is blue because of the copper.
Humans use only ten percent of their brain.
Answer
False. Imaging shows activity in practically every brain region. Over a full day, in all of them.
Bananas are berries in botanical terms.
Answer
True. Bananas are berries. Strawberries are not, they are aggregate fruits.
Measured from sea level, Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth.
Answer
True. From the base Mauna Kea is taller, from the Earth's center Chimborazo. From sea level Everest wins.
Goldfish have a memory of only three seconds.
Answer
False. Goldfish remember tasks they have learned for months.
There are valleys in Antarctica where it has not rained for millions of years.
Answer
True. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are among the driest places on Earth.
The Eiffel Tower is taller in summer than in winter.
Answer
True. Thermal expansion of the iron adds up to 15 centimeters in the heat.
Napoleon Bonaparte was unusually short.
Answer
False. At about 1.68 meters he was average for his time. Old French units started the legend.
There are more trees on Earth than there are stars in the Milky Way.
Answer
True. Roughly three trillion trees against an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars.
Vikings wore helmets with horns.
Answer
False. Not a single find shows horns. The image comes from 19th century opera costumes.
Venus spins the opposite way from most planets.
Answer
True. On Venus the Sun rises in the west. Its day even lasts longer than its year.
Camels store water in their humps.
Answer
False. The humps hold fat as an energy reserve, not water.
A day on Earth is getting very slowly longer.
Answer
True. Tidal friction slows the Earth by about 1.8 milliseconds per century.
Sharks cannot get cancer.
Answer
False. Tumors in sharks are well documented. The myth mostly sold cartilage pills.
The Danube flows through more countries than any other river on Earth.
Answer
True. The Danube crosses or touches ten countries on its way to the Black Sea.
The Rhine rises in Germany.
Answer
False. Both source rivers of the Rhine lie in Switzerland, in Graubünden.
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps.
Answer
True. At about 4,808 meters it tops every other Alpine peak.
The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Austria.
Answer
False. The Zugspitze is Germany's highest. Austria's is the Grossglockner at 3,798 meters.
The summit of the Matterhorn sits exactly on the border between Switzerland and Italy.
Answer
True. The 4,478 meter peak marks the border between Valais and the Aosta Valley.
Lake Constance belongs entirely to Germany.
Answer
False. Germany, Austria and Switzerland share it. In the main basin the border is still open.
The Volga is the longest river in Europe.
Answer
True. About 3,530 kilometers, clearly longer than the Danube with roughly 2,850.
Questions 26 to 50
The Rhône rises in France.
Answer
False. The Rhône rises at the Rhône Glacier in Valais and reaches France after Lake Geneva.
The Elbe empties into the Baltic Sea.
Answer
False. The Elbe empties into the North Sea near Cuxhaven, after about 1,100 kilometers.
The Po is the longest river in Italy.
Answer
True. 652 kilometers straight across northern Italy into the Adriatic.
Alpine glaciers have lost more than half of their ice volume since 1850.
Answer
True. More than half is gone. In the hot summer of 2022 Swiss glaciers lost six percent.
The Alps stretch across eight countries.
Answer
True. France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Romans had no symbol for zero.
Answer
True. Roman numerals got by without a zero. It reached Europe through Indian and Arab scholars.
The pyramids of Giza were built by slaves.
Answer
False. Excavated workers' villages show that paid, well-fed specialists and farmers did the building.
The Hundred Years' War really did last longer than a hundred years.
Answer
True. From 1337 to 1453. That makes 116 years, broken up by long truces.
Vikings reached America about 500 years before Columbus.
Answer
True. A Norse settlement stood at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the year 1000.
Construction of the Berlin Wall began in a single night.
Answer
True. On the night of August 13, 1961, barbed wire sealed off West Berlin. Concrete came later.
Marie Antoinette told the starving French to eat cake instead.
Answer
False. Rousseau wrote the line about an unnamed princess. She was still a child in Vienna.
The Second World War ended in Europe in May 1945.
Answer
True. The Wehrmacht's surrender took effect on May 8, 1945. In the Pacific it ran until September.
Albert Einstein failed math at school.
Answer
False. His report cards show top marks in math and physics. A reversed Swiss scale did the rest.
The Roman Empire carried on in the east for almost a thousand years after Rome fell.
Answer
True. The Byzantine Empire held on from 476 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Columbus set out on his voyage to prove that the Earth is round.
Answer
False. The sphere was known since antiquity. The argument was only about its circumference.
The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.
Answer
True. 241 athletes from 14 nations competed. Women were not admitted yet.
Emperor Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned.
Answer
False. The fiddle came about 1,500 years later, and Nero was out of town during the fire of AD 64.
Humans have exactly five senses and no more.
Answer
False. Balance, temperature and pain come on top. Researchers count well over ten senses.
Bulls are enraged by the color red.
Answer
False. Cattle are red-green colorblind. They react to the moving cloth, not to its color.
A coin dropped from a skyscraper can kill a person.
Answer
False. Air resistance slows the light coin down early. It hurts, and that is all.
Swallowed chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years.
Answer
False. It is not digested, but it passes through in a few days like anything else.
Hair and fingernails keep growing after death.
Answer
False. The skin dries out and pulls back. That only makes hair and nails look longer.
The Earth is closest to the Sun during the northern summer.
Answer
False. The closest point falls in early January. The seasons come from the tilt of the Earth's axis.
There is no gravity on the Moon.
Answer
False. The Moon pulls with about one sixth of Earth's gravity. That is why astronauts hop.
A deck of cards has more possible orders than the Earth is old in seconds.
Answer
True. 52 cards give a 68-digit number of orders. The Earth has counted about 140 quadrillion seconds.
Questions 51 to 75
The Danube empties into the Black Sea.
Answer
True. Its delta in Romania and Ukraine is the largest reed bed on Earth.
The Seine empties into the Mediterranean.
Answer
False. The Seine runs through Paris and empties into the English Channel at Le Havre.
The Grossglockner is the highest mountain in Austria.
Answer
True. 3,798 meters, a good 800 meters higher than the Zugspitze.
Mont Blanc is over 5,000 meters high.
Answer
False. Mont Blanc measures about 4,808 meters. The snow cap moves that by a few meters.
Lake Geneva lies entirely in Switzerland.
Answer
False. The southern shore with Évian is French. About 40 percent of the lake belongs to France.
The Danube is the longest river in the European Union.
Answer
True. About 2,850 kilometers. Only the Volga is longer in Europe, and it flows outside the EU.
The Inn empties into the Rhine.
Answer
False. The Inn joins the Danube at Passau, carrying more water there than the Danube itself.
The Loire is the longest river in France.
Answer
True. A good 1,000 kilometers, with more than 300 castles along its banks.
Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau stand in Austria.
Answer
False. The three of them belong to the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland.
The Danube passes four capital cities.
Answer
True. Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade. No other river manages that many.
The Rhine empties into the North Sea.
Answer
True. It splits into several arms in the Netherlands. The largest one is called the Waal.
The Danube runs from west to east, unlike most large European rivers.
Answer
True. It starts in the Black Forest and reaches the Black Sea 2,850 kilometers later.
The Danube is the second longest river in Europe.
Answer
True. Only the Volga is longer, and it never leaves Russia.
The Danube is longer than the Rhine and the Elbe put together.
Answer
True. 2,850 kilometers against roughly 2,320 for the other two together.
The Danube ends in a delta that Romania and Bulgaria share.
Answer
False. The delta belongs to Romania and Ukraine. Bulgaria stays upstream.
The Rhine passes through six countries.
Answer
True. Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France and the Netherlands.
The Rhine forms part of the border between Germany and Belgium.
Answer
False. The Rhine runs along the French border for about 190 kilometers. Belgium never sees it.
The Reuss is the longest river that stays inside Switzerland.
Answer
False. That is the Aare, 288 kilometers from the Bernese Alps to the Rhine.
The Rhône flows through Lake Geneva.
Answer
True. The Rhône goes in at one end and comes out at the other, near Geneva.
The Elbe rises in Czechia.
Answer
True. In the Giant Mountains, at about 1,380 meters.
The Oder forms part of the border between Germany and Poland.
Answer
True. Together with the Neisse it has marked that border since 1945.
The Moselle flows into the Rhine at Cologne.
Answer
False. The Moselle meets the Rhine at Koblenz, at the spot they call the German Corner.
The Neckar flows into the Rhine at Karlsruhe.
Answer
False. The Neckar joins at Mannheim, about 60 kilometers farther north.
The Isar flows through Munich and later into the Danube.
Answer
True. The Isar joins the Danube near Deggendorf.
The Drava flows into the Sava.
Answer
False. The Drava flows into the Danube, on the border between Croatia and Serbia.
Questions 76 to 100
The Ticino flows into the Adige.
Answer
False. The Ticino flows into the Po, just below Pavia.
The Weser begins where the Werra and the Fulda meet.
Answer
True. At Hann. Münden, where a stone marks the spot.
The Vistula is the longest river in Poland.
Answer
True. 1,047 kilometers, from the Beskids to the Baltic.
The Douro is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula.
Answer
False. That is the Tagus with about 1,000 kilometers. It ends at Lisbon.
The Douro forms part of the border between Spain and Portugal.
Answer
True. About 110 kilometers of the Douro run along the border.
The Tiber is the second longest river in Italy.
Answer
False. That is the Adige with 410 kilometers. The Tiber comes third.
The Matterhorn is higher than the Jungfrau.
Answer
True. 4,478 meters against 4,158.
The Jungfrau is the highest point in Switzerland.
Answer
False. That is the Dufourspitze with 4,634 meters. The Jungfrau stops at 4,158.
The Zugspitze sits right on the border between Germany and Austria.
Answer
True. The border runs right across the top. Cable cars come up from both sides.
The Brenner Pass connects Austria and Switzerland.
Answer
False. The Brenner connects Austria and Italy, at 1,370 meters.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel is the longest railway tunnel in the world.
Answer
True. 57 kilometers through the rock, opened in 2016.
More than half of Switzerland is covered by the Alps.
Answer
True. About 60 percent of the country, and most people live outside it.
Lake Constance is the largest lake in the Alps.
Answer
False. Lake Geneva is bigger, about 580 against 536 square kilometers.
The Aletsch Glacier is the largest glacier in the Alps.
Answer
True. Around 20 kilometers of ice, and it gets shorter every year.
In the main basin of Lake Constance no border has ever been legally agreed.
Answer
True. Germany, Austria and Switzerland never drew one. They simply share the water.
The Alps are still rising by a few millimeters a year.
Answer
True. Africa keeps pushing north. Erosion takes most of it back off the top.
The Rhine and the Rhône rise in the same Swiss canton.
Answer
False. The Rhine starts in Graubünden, the Rhône in Valais.
The Thames is the longest river in Great Britain.
Answer
False. The Severn beats it by a few kilometers, 354 against 346.
The Ebro flows into the Atlantic.
Answer
False. The Ebro empties into the Mediterranean. It is the longest river that stays inside Spain.
The Grossglockner is over 4,000 meters high.
Answer
False. The Grossglockner reaches 3,798 meters. Austria has no four-thousander at all.
Austria has more four-thousand-meter peaks than Switzerland.
Answer
False. Switzerland has dozens of four-thousanders. Austria has none.
The highest peak in the Pyrenees is higher than the highest in the Alps.
Answer
False. Aneto reaches 3,404 meters, Mont Blanc about 4,808.
The Mont Blanc Tunnel connects France and Switzerland.
Answer
False. The tunnel runs from France to Italy, from Chamonix to Courmayeur.
The Po flows into the Mediterranean west of Genoa.
Answer
False. The Po runs the other way, east into the Adriatic near Venice.
The Moselle rises in Germany.
Answer
False. The Moselle starts in the Vosges in France and only later turns German.
Questions 101 to 125
The Danube rises in Austria.
Answer
False. The Danube rises in the Black Forest in Germany. Austria only gets it later.
The Matterhorn is the highest mountain in the Alps.
Answer
False. Mont Blanc is about 330 meters higher. The Matterhorn just has the better shape.
The Alps are the longest mountain range in Europe.
Answer
False. The Scandinavian Mountains and the Urals both run longer than the Alps.
Slovenia has no share of the Alps.
Answer
False. The Julian Alps are Slovenian, and Triglav stands on the national coat of arms.
The Rhine is longer than the Danube.
Answer
False. The Rhine has 1,230 kilometers against 2,850. Not even close.
The Salzach flows into the Danube directly.
Answer
False. The Salzach joins the Inn first, and the Inn does the rest.
The Olympic Games were canceled twice because of world wars.
Answer
False. Three times: 1916, 1940 and 1944.
The Berlin Wall stood for 38 years.
Answer
False. 28 years, from August 1961 to November 1989.
Ancient Rome had about a million inhabitants.
Answer
True. No European city reached that number again until London in the 19th century.
Napoleon was born a French citizen.
Answer
True. Corsica became French in 1768. He was born a year later.
The Ottoman Empire lasted more than 600 years.
Answer
True. From around 1299 until 1922. That makes more than 600 years.
Columbus never set foot on the mainland of today's USA.
Answer
True. He reached Caribbean islands, Central America and Venezuela. The North American mainland stayed out of reach.
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the Great Pyramid.
Answer
True. The pyramid was already 2,500 years old when she was born.
The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be taken down after 20 years.
Answer
True. It was meant to come down after 20 years. A radio antenna on top saved it.
The Statue of Liberty was brown when it arrived.
Answer
True. Copper turns green. That took about 30 years.
Japan surrendered more than three months after Germany did.
Answer
True. Germany surrendered in May 1945, Japan in September.
Genghis Khan founded the empire that grew into the largest connected land empire ever.
Answer
True. Under his successors it stretched from the Pacific to the edge of Europe, in one piece.
The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in history by area.
Answer
False. The British Empire was larger. The Mongol one was the largest connected empire.
The Romans built with concrete.
Answer
True. The dome of the Pantheon is Roman concrete and still stands.
The guillotine was still in use in France in the 1970s.
Answer
True. The last execution was in 1977. The death penalty went in 1981.
The Thirty Years' War cost the German lands about a third of their people.
Answer
True. About a third of them died. Some regions took a century to recover.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 killed tens of thousands of people.
Answer
False. Only a handful of deaths were ever recorded, though the city burned down.
The French Revolution ended the monarchy in the year it began.
Answer
False. It started in 1789. The monarchy fell three years later, in 1792.
The Hundred Years' War was fought without a single break.
Answer
False. There were long truces. The fighting years add up to far less than a century.
Both sister ships of the Titanic survived the First World War.
Answer
False. The Britannic sank in 1916 after hitting a mine. Only the Olympic made it through.
Questions 126 to 150
The Maya calendar predicted the end of the world for 2012.
Answer
False. A long counting cycle simply ran out. The next one started right away.
The first modern Olympic marathon was run over 42.195 kilometers.
Answer
False. The 1896 course was about 40 kilometers. The odd distance came in 1908.
Julius Caesar was the first Roman emperor.
Answer
False. Caesar was dictator. His adopted son Augustus became the first emperor.
The Roman Empire fell in a single year, in 476.
Answer
False. Only the western half ended in 476, and it had been crumbling for a century.
The Great Wall of China was built in one go under one emperor.
Answer
False. Different dynasties built and rebuilt it over roughly 2,000 years.
The Rosetta Stone carries the same text in two scripts.
Answer
False. Three scripts: hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. The Greek version cracked it.
Vatican City has fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
Answer
True. Around 800 people, and hardly any of them are born there.
Monaco is smaller than Central Park in New York.
Answer
True. About 2 square kilometers against 3.4 for the park.
More than a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level.
Answer
True. About 26 percent of it. The lowest point lies almost seven meters down.
Andorra has no airport.
Answer
True. The mountains leave no flat ground. The nearest runways are in Spain and France.
San Marino is older as a state than Italy.
Answer
True. San Marino dates itself to 301. Italy was put together in 1861.
Belgium once went more than 500 days without a national government.
Answer
True. 541 days between 2010 and 2011, and the country kept running.
Iceland has no public railway network.
Answer
True. Iceland never built one. Buses, cars and small planes do the work.
Sweden has been driving on the right since the 1930s.
Answer
False. Only since 1967. One Sunday morning the whole country changed sides.
Reykjavík is the northernmost capital of a sovereign state.
Answer
True. 64 degrees north, and still just short of the Arctic Circle.
Norway is a member of the European Union.
Answer
False. Norway stayed out. Its voters said no twice, in 1972 and 1994.
Switzerland has been in the United Nations since 1945.
Answer
False. Switzerland only joined in 2002, after a referendum.
Portugal and Spain share the same time zone.
Answer
False. Portugal runs an hour behind, although Madrid lies farther east.
The European Union has more official languages than member states.
Answer
False. 24 languages against 27 states. Several countries share a language.
Greenland is part of the European Union.
Answer
False. Greenland left in 1985, over fishing rights.
Istanbul is the capital of Turkey.
Answer
False. Ankara has been the capital since 1923. Istanbul is only the bigger city.
A bolt of lightning is hotter than the surface of the Sun.
Answer
True. About 30,000 degrees against roughly 5,500 on the Sun.
Antarctica is technically a desert.
Answer
True. Almost no precipitation falls there. Deserts are about dryness, not heat.
The lowest point of dry land on Earth is the shore of the Dead Sea.
Answer
True. More than 400 meters below sea level, and it keeps sinking.
Mount Everest grows a few millimeters every year.
Answer
True. India is still pushing into Asia and the rock has nowhere to go but up.
Questions 151 to 175
There are more possible chess games than atoms in the observable universe.
Answer
True. The number of games has about 120 digits. The atom count has about 80.
Polar bears and penguins never meet in the wild.
Answer
True. Bears in the north, penguins in the south. The gap is the whole planet.
A day on Venus lasts longer than a year on Venus.
Answer
True. 243 Earth days for one turn, 225 for one orbit.
The Moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth.
Answer
True. About 3.8 centimeters a year. Mirrors left by Apollo let us measure it.
Sound travels faster in water than in air.
Answer
True. More than four times as fast. Whales use that.
Africa lies in all four hemispheres.
Answer
True. North and south of the equator, east and west of the prime meridian.
The equator crosses more countries in Africa than in South America.
Answer
True. Seven against three. In South America only Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil are on the line.
Sharks were already swimming before the first trees grew.
Answer
True. Sharks go back about 450 million years, trees about 385 million.
Australia is wider than the Moon.
Answer
True. About 4,000 kilometers across against the Moon's 3,475.
Alaska is both the westernmost and the easternmost state of the USA.
Answer
True. The Aleutian Islands reach across the 180th meridian.
There are places where the Sun does not set for more than two months.
Answer
True. On Svalbard the Sun stays up from April to August.
Russia and the USA are less than five kilometers apart at their closest point.
Answer
True. The two Diomede Islands sit about 3.8 kilometers apart.
Nobody agrees on whether the Nile or the Amazon is the longest river.
Answer
True. It depends which side arm you start counting from. Nobody has settled it.
It has never snowed in the Sahara.
Answer
False. Snow has fallen on the Algerian dunes several times in recent decades.
Water always drains counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere.
Answer
False. The shape of the basin decides. The Earth's spin is far too weak here.
Penguins live at the North Pole.
Answer
False. Penguins belong to the southern half of the world. Only the Galapagos penguin reaches as far as the equator.
Iceland has more active volcanoes than any other country.
Answer
False. Indonesia has by far the most, with well over a hundred.
A giraffe has more neck bones than a human.
Answer
False. Both have seven neck bones. A giraffe's are just very long.
Ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they are scared.
Answer
False. They lie flat or run. At 70 km/h, running works better.
Greenland is bigger than Africa.
Answer
False. Africa is about 14 times bigger. World maps stretch the far north.
The Sahara is the largest desert on Earth.
Answer
False. Antarctica is bigger, and it is a desert too.
The Amazon carries more water than the next seven big rivers together.
Answer
True. About a fifth of all the river water reaching the sea comes out of it.
Chameleons change color to match their background.
Answer
False. They signal mood and temperature. Camouflage is a side effect at best.
The Earth is a perfect sphere.
Answer
False. Its radius at the equator is about 21 kilometers longer than at the poles.
Lightning never strikes water.
Answer
False. Lightning strikes the sea often. That is why you get out of the lake in a storm.
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