Empires, revolutions, laws, beliefs and the arguments still running.
History quizzes usually test dates. These try to test causes, because the date is the least interesting thing about any event.
The section runs from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome through the medieval world to the world wars, and sits alongside the structures people built to live together: governments, laws, religions and the myths that came before written records. Some questions are about famous turning points. Others are about the ordinary machinery — how a dynasty actually passed on power, what a law was really for.
If you want a place to start, the ancient world is the most forgiving: the stories are good, and the explanations fill in the context that school tends to skip.
Pharaohs, pyramids and three thousand years of continuity.
The classical world and how much of it we kept.
The science used to investigate, and its real limits.
Empires, revolutions and the people who shaped the world.
Rights, courts and the principles underneath them.
Gods, heroes and the stories cultures told themselves.
How states are organised and who decides what.
The world's major traditions, described plainly.
Ruling houses and how power passed between them.
A thousand years usually described far too simply.
Two conflicts that reorganised the modern world.
Beer rations, board games, eye paint and the rubbish heap that told us how ordinary Egyptians lived.
Egyptian writing sheets were made from what?
Angles, casing stones, granite hauled from Aswan, and what the workers' village actually revealed.
The Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, which changes angle partway up, was built for which king?
The gods with animal heads, the weighing of the heart, and what the jars beside the coffin were for.
Which god, shown with the head of a jackal, was associated with embalming?
Ten kings and one queen who took the throne, from the first unifier to the last native ruler.
Which king appears on a famous carved palette wearing the crowns of both Upper and Lower Egypt?
What forensic techniques can establish, and what they cannot.
Forensic science is best defined as what?
Ruling houses across three continents and how power moved.
Who is the longest-reigning monarch in British history?
How both wars began, turned and were settled.
In which year did the First World War begin?
Feudal Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic Golden Age.
Feudalism is best described as a system of what?
Floods, tricksters and dying gods turn up across unconnected cultures. Three explanations, and how to tell which applies.
Read article 4 min readFor fourteen centuries nobody could read ancient Egyptian. The decipherment took a broken slab, a rivalry and one correct guess.
Read article 4 min readFrom a Latin crossroads to the pub quiz, by way of a rigging scandal and a missing set of Scrabble tiles.
Read article15 published quizzes across 11 topics, 148 questions in total. Every one is researched, written and checked by hand.
The mix here is 4 easy, 9 medium and 2 hard. Difficulty is about how obscure the answers are, not how fast you have to be — there is no timer on any quiz.
About 7 minutes on average, ranging from 6 to 10. Playing every quiz in this section would take roughly 2 hours.
No. Every quiz is free and playable straight away. An optional free account only saves your scores across devices.
Yes — every question has a short explanation of why the right answer is right, shown the moment you answer, whether you got it or not.