Medium History Trivia Questions

33 medium history trivia questions with answers

1. Which empire was ruled from Constantinople after 330 AD?

   Answer: The Byzantine Empire Constantine renamed the older Greek city of Byzantium after himself.Why?

2. Who wrote the Ninety-five Theses that sparked the Reformation?

   Answer: Martin Luther His main objection was to the sale of indulgences.Why?

3. The French Revolution began in which year?

   Answer: 1789 The storming of the Bastille came that July.

4. Which ancient civilisation built Machu Picchu?

   Answer: The Inca The Andean site sits high above the Urubamba valley in Peru.Why?

5. Who was the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt?

   Answer: Cleopatra VII She was the final ruler of the Greek-descended Ptolemaic dynasty.Why?

6. Whose letters gave the American continents their name?

   Answer: Amerigo Vespucci A German mapmaker labelled the new land after his first name.

7. The Hundred Years' War was fought between England and which country?

   Answer: France Despite the name, the fighting stretched well past a hundred years.

8. Which leader led a nonviolent campaign against British rule in India?

   Answer: Mahatma Gandhi His 1930 salt march openly defied the colonial salt monopoly.Why?

9. The Mongol Empire was founded by which leader?

   Answer: Genghis Khan His grandson Kublai later ruled China as the Yuan emperor.

10. Which South American country is named after its liberator?

    Answer: Bolivia Simon Bolivar led independence campaigns across the northern Andes.Why?

11. By legend, Rome was founded by which pair of brothers?

    Answer: Romulus and Remus The story says a she-wolf raised the abandoned twins.

12. Apartheid was the official system of racial segregation in which country?

    Answer: South Africa It was dismantled through negotiations in the early 1990s.

13. The Spanish Armada sailed against which country in 1588?

    Answer: England Fireships and Atlantic storms wrecked much of the fleet.

14. Who became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

    Answer: Margaret Thatcher She entered Downing Street in 1979.Why?

15. Which explorer led the first expedition to sail around the world, though he died before it finished?

    Answer: Ferdinand Magellan He was killed in the Philippines in 1521; one ship under Elcano completed the voyage.

16. Which Portuguese navigator reached India by sea around Africa in 1498?

    Answer: Vasco da Gama His route broke the overland monopoly on the spice trade.

17. The Battle of Stalingrad was fought in which country?

    Answer: The Soviet Union The German Sixth Army surrendered there in February 1943, a turning point on the Eastern Front.

18. Which 1916 battle on the Western Front ran from July to November with over a million casualties?

    Answer: The Somme The British Army suffered around 57,000 casualties on its first day alone.

19. Who led the Soviet Union throughout the Second World War?

    Answer: Joseph Stalin He ruled from the late 1920s until his death in 1953.

20. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 began the rapid modernisation of which country?

    Answer: Japan Power was returned to the emperor and the old shogunate abolished.

21. Who proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949?

    Answer: Mao Zedong He announced it from Tiananmen Gate after the Communists won the civil war.

22. Who was the first emperor of Rome?

    Answer: Augustus Born Octavian, he took the title in 27 BC after defeating Antony and Cleopatra.

23. Hannibal, who crossed the Alps with war elephants, fought for which city?

    Answer: Carthage He invaded Italy in 218 BC during the Second Punic War.

24. The Crusades were launched mainly to take control of which city?

    Answer: Jerusalem The First Crusade captured it in 1099, and it changed hands several times afterwards.

25. Which ruler was crowned emperor by the Pope in Rome on Christmas Day 800?

    Answer: Charlemagne His Frankish empire covered much of western Europe and is seen as the start of the Holy Roman Empire.

26. Which Mughal emperor built the Taj Mahal?

    Answer: Shah Jahan He raised it as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631.

27. Who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web?

    Answer: Tim Berners-Lee He proposed it at CERN in 1989 and released the first web browser in 1990.

28. Which Egyptian leader nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, triggering a crisis?

    Answer: Gamal Abdel Nasser Britain, France and Israel invaded but withdrew under pressure from the United States.

29. Cyrus the Great founded which empire in the sixth century BC?

    Answer: The Persian Empire His Achaemenid state stretched from the Aegean to the Indus.

30. Which country's independence in 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah began the wave of decolonisation in sub-Saharan Africa?

    Answer: Ghana It had been the British colony of the Gold Coast.

31. Who wrote The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels in 1848?

    Answer: Karl Marx It appeared in the same year revolutions swept across Europe.

32. Haiti won independence in 1804 after a revolution against which colonial power?

    Answer: France It was the only successful slave revolt to create an independent state.

33. Florence Nightingale nursed wounded soldiers during which war?

    Answer: The Crimean War Britain and France fought Russia there between 1853 and 1856.