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This history trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and spans the full arc of human civilisation: the first writing systems in Mesopotamia, the empires of Egypt, Greece, Rome and China, the medieval kingdoms, the age of exploration, the revolutions in America and France, two world wars and the Cold War that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 100 questions are mixed from easy to hard, so it works as a warm-up for a family quiz night, a classroom starter, or a set of historical trivia questions and answers for a solo test of how much actually stuck. Multiple choice, instant scoring, and a short explanation after every answer. Every answer has been checked against a real source and each question shows where it came from, so if a result looks wrong you can see the evidence rather than take our word for it.
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Q 01Machu Picchu, built around 1450 likely for the emperor Pachacuti, was the work of which civilization?
Inca
The Inca built Machu Picchu around 1450, probably as an estate for the emperor Pachacuti; it sits at about 2,430 metres and was abandoned at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Q 02The Rosetta Stone carried its text in how many scripts?
Three
The three inscriptions are Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic and Ancient Greek, all carrying the same 196 BC decree for Ptolemy V, which is why the Greek could unlock the others.
Q 03What was the primary purpose of the Roman aqueducts?
Transporting water
Transporting water was the job: by the 3rd century AD eleven aqueducts brought water into Rome from outside, filling public baths, fountains and private homes. The Pont du Gard survives.
Q 04Which Greek city-state is often called the birthplace of democracy?
Athens
Athens is the answer: Cleisthenes introduced its democratic reforms in 508 BC, and under Pericles the city built the Parthenon and led the Delian League as the dominant naval power of Greece.
Q 05The Great Wall of China was primarily built to defend against invasions from which direction?
North
The Great Wall was built along China's northern border to defend against nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe, particularly the Xiongnu, Mongols, and other northern peoples. Construction began as early as the 7th century BC, with the most well-known sections built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
Q 06What ancient writing system used wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets?
Cuneiform
Cuneiform was developed by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 3400 BC and is one of the earliest known writing systems. The name comes from the Latin 'cuneus' meaning 'wedge,' describing the distinctive marks made by a reed stylus pressed into wet clay tablets.
Q 07Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC on a date the Roman calendar knew by what name?
The Ides of March
The Ides of March, 15 March 44 BC: senators led by Brutus and Cassius stabbed Caesar at the Theatre of Pompey, three days before he was due to leave for a Parthian campaign.
Q 08Cyrus the Great, who took Babylon in 539 BC, founded which Persian dynasty's realm?
Achaemenid
Achaemenid: Cyrus founded the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC. The Cyrus Cylinder from Babylon records his restoration of temples and return of exiles; the last Shah promoted it as a charter of human rights.
Q 09What volcanic eruption in 79 AD buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum?
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 AD (by the traditional date); ash and pyroclastic flows sealed Pompeii and Herculaneum so completely that their 18th-century rediscovery gave an unmatched snapshot of Roman daily life.
Q 10Which ancient civilization is credited with inventing the concept of zero as a number?
Indian
While several ancient civilizations used placeholder symbols, Indian mathematicians were the first to treat zero as a number in its own right. Brahmagupta, in 628 AD, wrote rules for arithmetic involving zero, which eventually spread to the Islamic world and then to Europe.
Q 11What name did Ferdinand von Richthofen popularise in 1877 for the network of Asian trade routes?
Silk Road
Silk Road: the geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined 'Seidenstraße' in 1877. It was never one highway but a web of routes that carried religions, technologies and diseases as well as goods across Eurasia.
Q 12Reaching Europe in 1347 and caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which pandemic killed 30 to 60 percent of Europeans?
The Black Death
The Black Death killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population after arriving in 1347, and roughly a third of the Middle East's; the culprit was the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Q 13Magna Carta, sealed at Runnymede in 1215, primarily limited the power of which English monarch?
Q 21Commissioned by Pope Julius II, which Italian artist painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, standing on scaffolding?
Michelangelo
Michelangelo painted the ceiling standing on scaffolding, not lying on his back as legend says; its Genesis scenes, commissioned by Pope Julius II, include the Creation of Adam.
Q 22Sailing west for Spain with the Niña, Pinta and Santa María, which explorer reached the Bahamas in October 1492?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus believed he had reached Asia when he landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492; his four voyages opened the way for European colonization of the Americas.
Q 23The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided newly discovered lands between which two powers?
John
King John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 under pressure from rebel barons; it set out that the king was subject to the law, a foundation of later constitutional government.
Q 14Which city was the capital of the Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years?
Constantinople
Constantinople: Constantine I refounded Byzantium as 'New Rome' in 330, and it remained the eastern capital until the Ottomans took it in 1453; today it is Istanbul.
Q 15Which weapon did the archers of Henry V's army carry at Agincourt in 1415?
Longbow
The longbow: Henry fielded roughly 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000 archers against a far larger French force, and legend says the French had threatened to cut two fingers off every archer's right hand.
Q 16Which Mongol leader created the largest contiguous land empire in history?
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (born Temujin around 1162) united the Mongol tribes and conquered vast territories from China to Eastern Europe. At its peak under his successors, the Mongol Empire covered about 24 million square kilometers, making it the largest contiguous land empire ever.
Q 17A century after its founder died in 632, which religion's rulers held Spain to Central Asia?
Islam
Islam reached from Spain to Central Asia within a hundred years of Muhammad's death, spread by the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates through conquest, trade and missionary work.
Q 18Taken by the First Crusade in 1099 and retaken by Saladin in 1187, which city were the Crusades chiefly fought to control?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem changed hands three ways: stormed by the First Crusade in 1099, retaken by Saladin in 1187, then handed back by negotiation during the Sixth Crusade in 1229.
Q 19Mansa Musa's 1324 hajj reportedly depressed gold's value in Egypt. Which West African state did he rule?
Mali
Mansa Musa spent three months in Cairo handing out gold and is said to have built a mosque every Friday of the journey.
Q 20What 1517 document by Martin Luther is considered to have launched the Protestant Reformation?
The 95 Theses
The 95 Theses: Luther, a theology professor at Wittenberg, wrote them in 1517 against the sale of indulgences; the famous nailing to the church door is a later tradition rather than a documented event.
Spain and Portugal
Spain and Portugal: the line ran 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, which is why Brazil, lying east of it, became Portuguese while most of the Americas went to Spain.
Q 24Which Johannes Gutenberg invention of around 1440 spread Renaissance ideas so fast that 20 million volumes existed within 50 years?
The printing press
The printing press with movable type let Europe mass-produce books for the first time; Gutenberg's Bible of about 1455 showed it off, and within 50 years some 20 million volumes had been printed.
Q 25Which Ottoman sultan, aged just 21, ended the Byzantine Empire in 1453 by capturing its capital?
Mehmed II
Mehmed II, born in 1432, took Constantinople on 29 May 1453 at age 21. He then styled himself caesar of Rome, a claim the Orthodox Patriarchate accepted but most European monarchs rejected.
Q 26The transatlantic slave trade primarily transported enslaved Africans to which region?
The Americas
The Americas received most of the 12.5 million Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic between the 16th and 19th centuries, above all the Caribbean, Brazil and North America.
Q 27Which philosopher wrote 'The Prince,' a political treatise on gaining and maintaining power, in 1513?
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli drafted it in 1513 under the Latin title De Principatibus, but The Prince was not printed until 1532, five years after his death.
Q 28Which 19th-century imperial power was described as the one 'on which the sun never sets'?
Britain
Its territories were spread so widely around the globe that daylight always fell on at least one of them.
Q 29Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' is housed in which famous museum?
The Louvre
The Louvre in Paris has held the Mona Lisa since 1797; Vincenzo Peruggia stole it from there in 1911, a theft that made the painting far more famous than it had been before.
Q 30The Peace of Westphalia, two treaties signed in Osnabrück and Münster in 1648, ended which conflict?
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) had killed between 4.5 and 8 million people, making it the deadliest of Europe's wars of religion; Westphalia also recognised Dutch and Swiss independence.