60 history trivia questions from ancient times to today
Quick answer: 60 history quiz questions with answers in four rounds: the ancient world, the medieval and Islamic Golden Age, 1500–1900 and the 20th century.
Round 1: Ancient world
Faces from this round appear in our famous historical figures guide.
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which king of Babylon issued one of the first written law codes? | Hammurabi |
| 2 | Which civilisation built the pyramids of Giza? | Ancient Egypt |
| 3 | Who founded the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC? | Cyrus the Great |
| 4 | Which Greek philosopher taught Alexander the Great? | Aristotle |
| 5 | Which city-state defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War? | Sparta |
| 6 | Who was the first emperor of Rome? | Augustus |
| 7 | Which Carthaginian general crossed the Alps with elephants? | Hannibal |
| 8 | Which volcano buried Pompeii in 79 AD? | Vesuvius |
| 9 | Which Chinese dynasty built the earliest sections of the Great Wall? | The Qin dynasty |
| 10 | Who was the last active pharaoh of Egypt? | Cleopatra VII |
| 11 | Where was the ancient Library of Alexandria? | Egypt |
| 12 | Which empire’s capital was Constantinople? | The Byzantine Empire |
| 13 | Which Indian emperor spread Buddhism in the 3rd century BC? | Ashoka |
| 14 | What is the name of the stone that helped decode Egyptian hieroglyphs? | The Rosetta Stone |
| 15 | In which modern country was ancient Mesopotamia mainly located? | Iraq |
Round 2: Medieval and Islamic Golden Age
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Which Abbasid caliph founded Baghdad as his capital in 762? | Al-Mansur |
| 17 | Who wrote the medical encyclopedia The Canon of Medicine? | Avicenna (Ibn Sina) |
| 18 | Which scholar’s name gave us the word “algorithm”? | Al-Khwarizmi |
| 19 | Who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187? | Saladin |
| 20 | Which Mongol leader’s armies sacked Baghdad in 1258? | Hulagu Khan |
| 21 | Who was crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 AD? | Charlemagne |
| 22 | Which Ottoman sultan captured Constantinople in 1453? | Mehmed II |
| 23 | Which traveller from Tangier journeyed for nearly 30 years across Africa and Asia? | Ibn Battuta |
| 24 | Who founded al-Qarawiyyin in Fez in 859? | Fatima al-Fihri |
| 25 | Which plague killed about a third of Europe in the 14th century? | The Black Death |
| 26 | Which Malian ruler’s pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 was famous for its gold? | Mansa Musa |
| 27 | Who wrote the Muqaddimah in 1377? | Ibn Khaldun |
| 28 | Which dynasty ruled al-Andalus from Córdoba? | The Umayyads |
| 29 | Which battle in 1066 made William of Normandy king of England? | The Battle of Hastings |
| 30 | Which Mongol leader founded the largest land empire in history? | Genghis Khan |
Round 3: 1500 to 1900
Many inventions from this period are in inventions that changed history.
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | Who reached the Americas in 1492? | Christopher Columbus |
| 32 | Which Ottoman sultan was called “the Magnificent”? | Suleiman I |
| 33 | Which document did King John of England seal in 1215? | Magna Carta |
| 34 | In which year did the French Revolution begin? | 1789 |
| 35 | Who led the independence of several South American countries? | Simón Bolívar |
| 36 | Which war was fought between 1861 and 1865 in the United States? | The American Civil War |
| 37 | Who was the first President of the United States? | George Washington |
| 38 | In which year did the Suez Canal open? | 1869 |
| 39 | Who was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815? | Napoleon |
| 40 | Which emperor built the Taj Mahal? | Shah Jahan |
| 41 | Who unified Germany in 1871? | Otto von Bismarck |
| 42 | Which queen ruled Britain for most of the 19th century? | Queen Victoria |
| 43 | Which Egyptian ruler founded a dynasty in 1805 and modernised the country? | Muhammad Ali Pasha |
| 44 | Which movement in 1517 began with Martin Luther’s 95 theses? | The Reformation |
| 45 | Which empire did Tsar Peter the Great rule? | Russia |
Round 4: The 20th century to today
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 46 | In which year did the First World War begin? | 1914 |
| 47 | In which year did the Second World War end? | 1945 |
| 48 | Who led India’s non-violent independence movement? | Mahatma Gandhi |
| 49 | In which year did the Berlin Wall fall? | 1989 |
| 50 | Who was the first person in space? | Yuri Gagarin, in 1961 |
| 51 | Who became South Africa’s first Black president in 1994? | Nelson Mandela |
| 52 | In which year was the United Nations founded? | 1945 |
| 53 | Which Egyptian president nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956? | Gamal Abdel Nasser |
| 54 | Who gave the “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963? | Martin Luther King Jr. |
| 55 | In which year did humans first land on the Moon? | 1969 |
| 56 | Which event in 1986 was the worst nuclear accident in history? | Chernobyl |
| 57 | In which year was the Arab League founded? | 1945 |
| 58 | Which country did Winston Churchill lead during the Second World War? | The United Kingdom |
| 59 | In which year did the Soviet Union dissolve? | 1991 |
| 60 | Which Egyptian scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999? | Ahmed Zewail |
Frequently asked questions
What is a good history quiz question?
One that links a person, place and date, with one clear answer.
Where can I play history quizzes online?
Trivillion has history trivia and a historical figures picture quiz in English, Arabic, Spanish and French.