Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Funny History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free funny history trivia questions with answers. This funny history trivia quiz collects the moments historians would rather not dwell on: the army that lost to emus, the war over a shot pig, the war named after a pastry chef, the war that lasted 38 minutes and the war in which the only shot hit a soup kettle. There is a pope who put a corpse on trial, an emperor who allegedly wanted his horse made consul, a king who thought he was made of glass and a San Francisco pauper who declared himself Emperor of the United States and abolished Congress. The modern era does not escape: an Olympic marathon won on strychnine and brandy after the first finisher arrived by car, a whale blown up with half a ton of dynamite, a New York riot over straw hats, a headless chicken that toured the country, and a Pepsi promotion that printed 800,000 winning bottle caps. Every one of these stories is real and every answer has been checked against a primary source, mostly Wikipedia's articles on the events, with the citation shown once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In 1932 the Australian Army went to war against which animal, and lost?
Emus
Soldiers with Lewis guns and 10,000 rounds managed 986 confirmed kills; the commander compared the birds to tanks.
Q 02How many emus did the Australian Army confirm killed in the entire Emu War?
986
About 20,000 emus had invaded the wheatbelt; the survivors carried on eating the crops and the government switched to fences.
Q 03Which senator was mockingly dubbed the 'Minister of the Emu War' in the Australian parliament?
Sir George Pearce
As defence minister he had ordered the cull after ex-soldier farmers asked for machine guns.
Q 04The 1859 Pig War between the US and Britain began when an American farmer shot a pig for doing what?
Eating his potatoes
The pig belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company; the only casualty of the whole 'war' was the pig.
Q 05Per US park rangers, what was the biggest threat to peace during the joint occupation of San Juan Island?
The large amounts of alcohol available
The two garrisons spent years visiting each other's camps for holidays and sports days.
Q 06The 1325 War of the Bucket was fought between Bologna and which other Italian city?
Modena
Despite the name, the war was really about a captured castle; the bucket was carried off as a trophy afterwards.
Q 07The 1838 Pastry War's namesake French chef had a shop worth under 1,000 pesos. How much did he demand in damages?
60,000
France eventually demanded 600,000 pesos for all its grievances and blockaded Veracruz to collect.
Q 08The shortest war in recorded history, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted roughly how long?
38 minutes
Britain fired at 9:02 and stopped at 9:40; one British sailor was injured.
Q 09The 1784 Habsburg-Dutch Kettle War got its name because the only shot fired hit what?
A soup pot
The Dutch ship Dolfijn fired once, the pot took the hit, and the Habsburg ship Le Louis surrendered.
Q 10Michigan lost the 1835 Toledo War to Ohio but was consoled with what territory when it became a state?
The Upper Peninsula
Michigan voters thought it a terrible deal at the time; the copper and iron up there proved otherwise.
Q 11The only serious injury of the Toledo War was inflicted by an Ohioan named Two Stickney, who did what?
Stabbed a Michigan sheriff's deputy
His brother was named One Stickney; the sole 'battle' was at Phillips Corners.
Q 12In January 1919 a wave of what swept through Boston's North End at 35 mph, killing 21 people?
Molasses
A tank holding 2.3 million gallons burst; residents said the area smelled sweet on hot days for decades.
Q 13The London Beer Flood of 1814 released a wave of what after a 22-foot vat burst?
Porter
Up to 323,000 gallons swept into the St Giles slums, killing eight; the coroner ruled the deaths an act of God and the brewery got a tax rebate.
Q 21Around 1781 Benjamin Franklin wrote a mock scientific proposal urging the study of what?
Farting
He suggested a drug to make it smell 'agreeable as perfumes' and closed with the pun that other sciences were 'scarcely worth a fart-hing'.
Q 22The 532 AD Nika riots that burned half of Constantinople began with fans of what?
Chariot racing teams
The Blues and Greens united against Emperor Justinian, chanting 'Nika' (victory); tens of thousands died.
Q 23Joshua Norton of San Francisco declared himself what in 1859?
Emperor of the United States
Restaurants honoured his home-made currency, and 'Emperor Norton' inspired characters by Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Q 14In July 1518, dozens of people in Strasbourg started doing what for weeks, unable to stop?
Dancing
It began with one woman, Frau Troffea, in the street; the city council eventually let doctors take over.
Q 15In 897 Pope Stephen VI put his predecessor Formosus on trial. What was unusual about the defendant?
He had been dead for nine months
The corpse was dug up, dressed in vestments and propped in a chair; a deacon answered on its behalf. It lost.
Q 16Roman writers claimed Caligula planned to give which office to his horse Incitatus?
Consul
The horse allegedly had a marble stable, an ivory manger and 18 servants; historians think it was Caligula's joke at the Senate's expense.
Q 17'Defenestration', throwing someone out of a window, entered English after events in which city?
Prague
In 1618 Protestant nobles tossed two royal governors and their secretary out of Hradčany Castle; they survived, reportedly landing in a dung heap.
Q 18The astronomer Tycho Brahe lost part of his nose in 1566 in a duel over what?
Who was the better mathematician
He wore a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life; a 2012 analysis of his exhumed body found it was brass, not silver and gold.
Q 19Charles VI of France had a delusion recorded across Europe for centuries. What did sufferers believe?
That they were made of glass and might shatter
Some reportedly refused to sit down or had iron rods sewn into their clothes for protection.
Q 20How did Oregon's Highway Division dispose of a dead 45-foot sperm whale at Florence in 1970?
Blowing it up with half a ton of dynamite
Blubber rained down 800 feet away and crushed a car; the engineer in charge had been picked because his boss was out hunting.
Q 24One of Emperor Norton's first imperial decrees, in October 1859, ordered what?
The abolition of the US Congress
When Congress ignored him he ordered General Scott to march in and clear the halls. Congress did not comply.
Q 25In medieval Europe, which animals were most often put on trial in secular courts?
Pigs
Wild beasts were never charged; domesticated animals were tried in secular courts and pests like rats in church courts.
Q 26Liechtenstein abolished its army in 1868 for what reason?
Financial reasons
The principality had become fully independent only two years earlier when the German Confederation dissolved.
Q 27Britain lost all of the 20th-century Cod Wars to which country?
Iceland
Iceland threatened to leave NATO, which would have cost the alliance a key anti-submarine chokepoint; there was one confirmed death in two decades.
Q 28First across the line in the 1904 Olympic marathon, Fred Lorz was disqualified because he had done what?
Ridden part of the way in a car
He had already posed with Alice Roosevelt and was about to get the gold; he said it was a practical joke.
Q 291904 Olympic marathon winner Thomas Hicks was kept going with brandy, egg white and what?
Strychnine
It counts as the first recorded use of performance-enhancing drugs at the modern Games; he hallucinated and had to be carried over the line.
Q 30Cuban runner Andarín Carvajal came fourth in the 1904 marathon despite stopping to eat what?
Rotten apples from an orchard
He had lost his money gambling, hitchhiked to St. Louis, and ran in cut-off street trousers.