93 history trivia questions with answers
93 history trivia questions from ancient Rome to the 20th century, each with four options, the answer and the story behind it. They come from Quible’s trivia game and are fact-checked. Good for quiz nights, classrooms or testing yourself.
Questions 1 to 25
Which civilization built the palace of Knossos on Crete?
Answer
The Minoans. Europe's oldest advanced culture, named after the legendary King Minos.
How many member states does the European Union have?
Answer
27. Since the United Kingdom left in 2020 there are 27.
In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?
Answer
1989. The crossings opened on November 9, 1989. Reunification followed barely a year later.
Which people built Machu Picchu?
Answer
Inca. The Inca built the city around 1450 at roughly 2,400 meters altitude.
Who was the first human in space?
Answer
Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin circled the Earth in 108 minutes in 1961.
Which empire did Emperor Augustus rule?
Answer
The Roman Empire. Augustus became the first Roman emperor in 27 BC. The month of August still carries his name.
Who was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize?
Answer
Marie Curie. Marie Curie took the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and in chemistry in 1911, a double no one has repeated.
Which city hosted the first Winter Olympics in 1924?
Answer
Chamonix. The games were only declared Olympic afterwards, in 1926.
In which year did the Second World War begin?
Answer
1939. In Europe the war lasted almost exactly six years, until May 1945.
Which pharaoh was the Great Pyramid of Giza built for?
Answer
Khufu. It was the tallest building in the world for 3,800 years.
Which ship picked up the survivors of the Titanic?
Answer
The Carpathia. She raced through ice fields for four hours to get there.
Which city was buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD?
Answer
Pompeii. The ash preserved the city so well that loaves of bread were found still in the oven.
What was the name of the ship Charles Darwin sailed around the world on?
Answer
Beagle. The voyage was planned for two years and took almost five.
In which year did Parisians storm the Bastille?
Answer
1789. Only seven prisoners were being held in the fortress that day.
Which general crossed the Alps with war elephants?
Answer
Hannibal. Of 37 elephants, only a fraction survived the winter in Italy.
Who was the first woman in space?
Answer
Valentina Tereshkova. Tereshkova circled the Earth 48 times in three days in 1963.
Which country gave the Statue of Liberty to the USA?
Answer
France. She crossed the Atlantic in 1885, taken apart into 214 crates.
In which century did Gutenberg print his Bible?
Answer
15th century. Around 180 copies were made about 1455. Just under 50 of them still exist.
Which treaty officially ended the First World War in 1919?
Answer
Treaty of Versailles. It was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, five years to the day after Sarajevo.
What was the name of the first artificial satellite of Earth?
Answer
Sputnik 1. The sphere weighed 84 kilograms and beeped back to Earth for 21 days.
Which empire ruled Constantinople until 1453?
Answer
The Byzantine Empire. Byzantium was the eastern Roman legacy. The city is called Istanbul today.
Who reached the South Pole first?
Answer
Roald Amundsen. Amundsen got there in December 1911. Scott arrived five weeks later.
In which country did the Industrial Revolution begin?
Answer
Great Britain. Coal, the steam engine and cotton came together there from about 1760.
How long did the Hundred Years' War last?
Answer
116 years. From 1337 to 1453, with plenty of pauses between the campaigns.
In which year was the Berlin Wall built?
Answer
1961. Building started during the night of August 13, 1961, and took only a few hours.
Questions 26 to 50
In which year did Columbus land in America?
Answer
1492. On October 12, 1492 his crew sighted an island in what is now the Bahamas.
Which country was the first to introduce women's suffrage?
Answer
New Zealand. 1893. Switzerland only followed at the federal level in 1971.
Who united the Mongol tribes in the 13th century?
Answer
Genghis Khan. His empire grew into the largest connected land empire in history.
In which ancient city are the Hanging Gardens said to have stood?
Answer
Babylon. Not a single trace of the gardens has ever been found. Some people think they were invented.
In which year was the Federal Republic of Germany founded?
Answer
1949. The Basic Law took effect on May 23, 1949, and was meant to be temporary.
Which event is seen as the trigger of the First World War?
Answer
The assassination in Sarajevo. The shot that killed the heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand was fired on June 28, 1914.
Which country did the USA buy Alaska from in 1867?
Answer
Russia. 7.2 million dollars, about two cents per hectare. At the time the purchase was called a folly.
In which year did apartheid end with the first free elections in South Africa?
Answer
1994. Nelson Mandela became president, after 27 years in prison.
When did the Western Roman Empire fall?
Answer
476 AD. The last emperor was named Romulus, of all things, like the founder of Rome.
Which document did the USA sign on July 4, 1776?
Answer
The Declaration of Independence. The Constitution came eleven years later. July 4 celebrates the Declaration.
Who was the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany?
Answer
Konrad Adenauer. Adenauer was elected in 1949 by a majority of exactly one vote, his own.
Which US president served more than two terms?
Answer
Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was elected four times. A law passed in 1951 made sure nobody could do it again.
Which Greek island was torn apart by a volcanic eruption around 1600 BC?
Answer
Santorini. The crater left behind is the bay that cruise ships anchor in today.
On which island was Napoleon held after Waterloo?
Answer
Saint Helena. From Elba he escaped. From Saint Helena, 1,900 kilometers offshore, nobody did.
Which island did the Dutch swap for Suriname in 1667?
Answer
Manhattan. In the Treaty of Breda the Dutch kept the sugar and gave up New Amsterdam.
On which island did the Vikings found the Althing assembly around 930?
Answer
Iceland. The Althing is often called the oldest parliament still sitting today.
Which Russian region lies between Poland and Lithuania, cut off from Russia?
Answer
Kaliningrad. The city was called Königsberg until 1946.
Which treaty ended the Thirty Years' War?
Answer
The Peace of Westphalia. Signed in Münster and Osnabrück in 1648 after five years of talks.
Which empire did Suleiman the Magnificent rule?
Answer
The Ottoman Empire. Under him the empire reached the gates of Vienna in 1529.
Which city was the capital of the Inca empire?
Answer
Cusco. The Inca called it the navel of the world.
Which city did the Spanish build Mexico City on top of?
Answer
Tenochtitlan. The Aztec city stood on an island in a lake that was later drained.
Which sea battle in 1805 secured Britain's rule of the seas?
Answer
Trafalgar. Nelson won the battle and did not survive it.
Who was the first European to reach India by sea?
Answer
Vasco da Gama. He landed at Calicut in 1498, ten years after Dias rounded the Cape.
Who brought the first voyage around the world home after Magellan died?
Answer
Juan Sebastián Elcano. Of five ships and about 270 men, one ship and 18 men made it back.
Which people built Chichén Itzá?
Answer
The Maya. Twice a year the sun draws a snake of shadow down the main pyramid.
Questions 51 to 75
Which writing did the Rosetta Stone help to decipher?
Answer
Egyptian hieroglyphs. The same text stood on it three times, one version in Greek.
Who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822?
Answer
Jean-François Champollion. He had taught himself Coptic first, and that was the key.
Who found the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922?
Answer
Howard Carter. He had dug in the Valley of the Kings for six seasons without luck.
Which ancient city did Heinrich Schliemann dig for?
Answer
Troy. He dug straight through the layer he was actually looking for.
Which Roman wall runs across northern England?
Answer
Hadrian's Wall. 117 kilometers of stone, built from around 122 AD.
Which battle stopped Rome's advance into Germania in 9 AD?
Answer
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Three legions were wiped out. Rome never seriously tried again.
In which battle did Hannibal destroy a Roman army in 216 BC?
Answer
Cannae. Military academies still teach how he closed the trap that day.
Which city did Rome wipe out at the end of the Third Punic War?
Answer
Carthage. 146 BC. Rome later rebuilt the city as its own colony.
In which sea battle did the Greeks beat the Persian fleet in 480 BC?
Answer
Salamis. Marathon, Thermopylae and Plataea were fought on land.
Who taught Alexander the Great as a boy?
Answer
Aristotle. Aristotle had been Plato's student, so the chain runs three deep.
Which empire did Alexander the Great bring down?
Answer
The Persian Empire. Eleven years of campaigning took him from Greece to the Indus.
Which Chinese dynasty ruled the longest?
Answer
The Zhou. About 790 years, longer than the Roman Empire lasted.
Whose tomb is guarded by the Terracotta Army?
Answer
Qin Shi Huang. China's first emperor. Farmers digging a well found the figures in 1974.
Which Norse seafarer is said to have reached North America around the year 1000?
Answer
Leif Erikson. A Norse settlement was dug up in Newfoundland in the 1960s.
Which king lost the Battle of Hastings in 1066?
Answer
Harold Godwinson. He had beaten a Norwegian invasion three weeks earlier, 400 kilometers north.
Which city was the head of the Hanseatic League?
Answer
Lübeck. Lübeck called the meetings and kept the league's law book.
Which family ruled Florence during the Renaissance?
Answer
The Medici. They made their money in banking and spent it on artists.
Which queen sent the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588?
Answer
Elizabeth I. Storms wrecked more Spanish ships than the English guns did.
Which conference in the summer of 1945 settled the order for post-war Germany?
Answer
Potsdam. Yalta came first, in February, while the war was still going on.
Which treaty founded the European Union in 1992?
Answer
The Treaty of Maastricht. It also set the rules that later produced the euro.
Which country joined the European Union most recently?
Answer
Croatia. Croatia joined in 2013, six years after Romania and Bulgaria.
Which African country became independent from Belgium in 1960?
Answer
DR Congo. Rwanda and Burundi followed two years later.
Which country was split into north and south along the 17th parallel?
Answer
Vietnam. The 1954 Geneva accords drew the line. Korea's runs along the 38th.
Which African country was never a European colony?
Answer
Ethiopia. Italy occupied it for five years but never turned it into a colony.
Which country was called Upper Volta until 1984?
Answer
Burkina Faso. The new name roughly means land of upright people.
Questions 76 to 93
Which country was called Ceylon until 1972?
Answer
Sri Lanka. The tea is still sold under the old name.
Which country was known as Siam until 1939?
Answer
Thailand. The new name means roughly land of the free.
Which country was called Rhodesia?
Answer
Zimbabwe. Zambia was Northern Rhodesia until 1964.
Which country was called Persia until 1935?
Answer
Iran. Iran means land of the Aryans and had long been used at home.
Which city was called Leningrad until 1991?
Answer
Saint Petersburg. Before that it was Petrograd, and before that Saint Petersburg.
Which city was called Danzig?
Answer
Gdańsk. Between the world wars it was a free city under the League of Nations.
Which building in Istanbul was a church, then a mosque, then a museum?
Answer
The Hagia Sophia. For almost a thousand years it was the largest church in the world.
Which is the oldest university in Europe that never stopped teaching?
Answer
Bologna. Founded in 1088, when students hired their own professors.
Which country hosted the first football World Cup?
Answer
Uruguay. 1930, and the hosts won it. Only four European teams bothered to sail over.
In which country was the marathon distance of 42.195 km settled?
Answer
United Kingdom. The 1908 London course was stretched so it could finish at the royal box.
In which year did the Thirty Years' War end?
Answer
1648. It started in 1618, so the arithmetic works out exactly.
In which year did the USA buy Louisiana from France?
Answer
1803. 15 million dollars for an area that doubled the young country.
In which century did the Black Death sweep across Europe?
Answer
14th century. Between 1347 and 1353 it killed roughly a third of the continent.
In which year did the euro arrive as notes and coins?
Answer
2002. It existed on paper from 1999, but wallets only felt it in 2002.
How many countries signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957?
Answer
6. Germany, France, Italy and the three Benelux countries.
In which year did Germany reunify?
Answer
1990. The Wall fell in November 1989, the states joined in October 1990.
Along which parallel is Korea divided?
Answer
38th parallel. Two officers drew the line on a map in 1945 in about half an hour.
In which year did the first satellite orbit the Earth?
Answer
1957. It was the size of a beach ball and beeped for three weeks.
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