100 Fun Facts About Middle School History

Hammurabi, famous for his law code, was king of which ancient city?

He was the sixth Amorite king there and presented his laws as a revelation from Shamash, the god of justice.

The Silk Road took its name from a luxury textile produced mainly in which country?

The term itself was only popularised in 1877, by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen.

Roughly what share of Europe's population is estimated to have died in the Black Death of 1346-1353?

The disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was mainly spread by flea bites.

The Black Death is said to have reached Europe during the 1347 siege of which Crimean trading port?

The Golden Horde army of Jani Beg was besieging the Genoese port when the plague spread from the camp to the city.

The Renaissance was first centred in which Italian city?

Its ruling Medici family paid for much of the art, and Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient texts with them.

Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-five Theses in which year?

They started an international debate that grew into the Protestant Reformation.

The Industrial Revolution began around 1760 in which country?

By about 1840 it had spread to continental Europe and the United States, bringing steam power and the factory system.

How much did the United States pay France for the Louisiana territory in 1803?

That worked out to less than three cents an acre and nearly doubled the size of the country.

Which leader had regained Louisiana for his country in 1800, three years before selling it to the US?

He had traded territories in Tuscany for it, hoping to rebuild a French empire in North America.

Which president sent Lewis and Clark to explore the newly bought western lands?

The expedition crossed the Continental Divide near Lemhi Pass and reached the Pacific in 1805.

Sacagawea, who travelled with Lewis and Clark, was a young woman of which people?

She was married to the French-Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, whom the expedition met on the Missouri.

The Golden Spike completing America's first transcontinental railroad was driven in 1869 in which state?

The line joined Council Bluffs, Iowa, with San Francisco Bay after six years of building.

The first immigrant processed at Ellis Island in 1892 was a 17-year-old girl from which country?

Annie Moore from Cork was travelling with her two brothers to join their parents in America.

About how many immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954?

By one estimate two-fifths of Americans descend from them.

The Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903 happened near which North Carolina town?

The longest of that day's flights lasted 26 seconds.

Which amendment gave American women the right to vote nationally in 1920?

Several states and territories had already let women vote before the national change.

The Great Depression is usually said to have begun with which event in 1929?

The downturn lasted a decade and brought bank failures and mass unemployment around the world.

The five D-Day landing beaches were Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and which other?

Codenamed Operation Neptune, the landings were the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Which Apollo 11 astronaut stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon?

He orbited alone in the command module Columbia while the lunar module Eagle sat in the Sea of Tranquility.

Which 1962 standoff is considered the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war?

It followed US missile deployments in Europe and Soviet missiles in Cuba, three years after the Cuban Revolution.

The best-known sections of the Great Wall of China were built by which dynasty?

The earliest walls date to the 7th century BC and were first joined together under the Qin.

The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was founded on islets in which body of water?

Mexico City stands on the site today; Hernán Cortés arrived when the empire was at its largest in 1519.

Which city was the political and military centre of the Inca Empire?

The Inca ruled the largest empire in pre-Columbian America and called it the Realm of the Four Parts.

Mansa Musa, one of history's richest people, ruled which West African empire?

His 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, with a huge entourage carrying gold, made him famous across the Mediterranean world.

In Greek myth, Paris took Helen from her husband, the king of which city?

The war ended with the trick of the wooden horse, and Homer's Iliad tells part of the story.

Which philosopher tutored the young Alexander the Great until he was 16?

Alexander went on to be undefeated in battle before dying aged 32.

Gutenberg's famous printed book of the 1450s is also known by what number-based nickname?

Of the roughly 158 to 180 copies printed, 49 survive in substantial part and 21 in full.

Which English king sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215?

Four copies of the original charter still exist: two at the British Library, one at Lincoln and one at Salisbury.

How many amendments make up the US Bill of Rights?

Congress actually approved twelve articles in 1789; ten were ratified on December 15, 1791.

Which representative drafted the proposals that became the Bill of Rights?

He studied the Anti-Federalists' objections to the Constitution and turned them into corrective amendments.

On the Underground Railroad, what were the guides who led escaping people called?

Hiding places were 'stations', the people escaping were 'passengers' and those who hid them at home were 'station masters'.

Besides the northern free states, escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad headed for which country?

The network was a system of secret routes and safe houses rather than an actual railway.

The Oregon Trail's first wagon train set out in 1836 from which Missouri town?

At that point the trail had only been cleared as far as Fort Hall, Idaho; it later reached the Willamette Valley.

Which Frenchman, builder of the Suez Canal, led the failed first attempt to dig the Panama Canal?

The canal finally opened under American control on 15 August 1914.

Ships in the Panama Canal are lifted by locks up to which artificial body of water?

Damming the Chagres River created the lake and cut down the amount of digging needed.

Roughly how many of the 2,208 people aboard the Titanic died when it sank in April 1912?

The ship had davits for 48 lifeboats but carried far fewer.

The Titanic was sailing from Southampton to which city when it hit an iceberg?

It was her maiden voyage; the Carpathia later relayed the news to the world by wireless.

The Rosetta Stone carries the same text in hieroglyphs, Demotic and which third script?

That third script is what let Jean-François Champollion crack hieroglyphs in 1822.

Soldiers of which army found the Rosetta Stone in 1799?

Officer Pierre-François Bouchard found it during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt; it has sat in the British Museum since 1802.

Which of these was NOT one of the three city-states that formed the Aztec Empire in 1427?

Teotihuacan was a far older city, already in ruins when the Aztecs rose.

What is the Cold War's usual end date, when the Soviet Union dissolved?

It is usually dated from 12 March 1947 to 26 December 1991.

The Great Depression's global downturn lasted from 1929 until which year?

It brought high unemployment, collapsing trade and widespread bank failures worldwide.

About how many chests of tea did the Sons of Liberty throw into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773?

The protesters, disguised as American Indians, boarded the merchant ship Dartmouth to do it.

How many passengers sailed to America aboard the Mayflower in 1620?

After ten weeks at sea, the ship anchored near the tip of Cape Cod on 21 November 1620.

Which second ship was meant to sail with the Mayflower but was left behind as unseaworthy?

The delays meant the Pilgrims made the crossing in a single ship.

In what year did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?

The wall encircled West Berlin until 1989, with a 'death strip' of trenches and defences.

Which lookout aboard the Pinta first spotted land on Columbus's 1492 voyage?

He saw land at about 2 a.m. on 12 October, after Columbus had turned the fleet due west.

On what date did Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation take effect?

It declared all slaves in the rebel states to be free and made abolition a Union war goal.

How old was Alexander the Great when he became king of Macedon in 336 BC?

By 30 he ruled an empire stretching from Greece to northwestern India, and he was never defeated in battle.

After how many years away did Marco Polo return to Venice from his travels in Asia?

He had set out with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo, who had already met Kublai Khan.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as the tomb of which pharaoh?

Khufu's vizier Hemiunu is thought by some to have been the architect, and three smaller pyramids nearby were built for Khufu's wives.

Cuneiform, the earliest known writing system, was first developed to write which language?

The wedge-shaped script grew out of a token system used for accounting, so the first writing was largely bookkeeping.

The first ancient Olympic Games are traditionally dated to which year?

The date comes from ancient reckoning and was accepted by most, though not all, later historians of antiquity.

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in which year?

He was killed by a group of senators during a Senate session held in the Theatre of Pompey, not in the Senate house itself.

Which volcano buried the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD?

The city vanished under 4 to 6 metres of ash and pumice, which is why so much of it survived intact for excavators.

Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell in 1453 to which empire?

The 53-day siege ended on 29 May 1453, and Sultan Mehmed II promptly made the city his new capital.

Who crowned Charlemagne emperor in Rome in the year 800?

The coronation took place on Christmas Day, and Charlemagne is counted as the forerunner of the Holy Roman Emperors.

According to the sagas, Leif Erikson founded a Norse settlement in a land he called what?

Many link the settlement to L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, a Norse site occupied about 1,000 years ago.

Which English king was defeated and killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066?

Only three weeks earlier Harold had beaten a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge, then marched south to face the Normans.

Which pope called for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

His sermon on 27 November 1095 urged Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Joan of Arc is famous for her role in lifting the 1429 siege of which city?

She was only about seventeen when Charles VII sent her with a relief army, and about nineteen when she was executed in 1431.

What was Genghis Khan's birth name?

When he was eight his father died and his family was abandoned by its tribe, an unlikely start for the founder of the Mongol Empire.

How many treasure voyages did the Chinese admiral Zheng He lead between 1405 and 1433?

The fleets sailed across Asia as far as East Africa under the Yongle and Xuande emperors.

After Magellan died in the Philippines, who led the expedition's return to Spain in 1522?

Five ships and about 270 men had left Spain in 1519; a much-depleted crew completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, was founded in which year?

The Virginia Company of London set it up as "James Fort" in May of that year.

How many people were executed by hanging in the Salem witch trials of 1692?

Thirty people were found guilty; the hangings took place in Salem Town, the regional centre for Salem Village.

About how many Lexington militiamen faced the British advance guard on April 19, 1775?

They had emerged from Buckman Tavern at sunrise and stood in ranks on Lexington Common as the Regulars marched in.

Which British general's army was defeated at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781?

He skipped the surrender ceremony on October 19, sending a deputy in his place.

The 1787 Constitutional Convention that wrote the US Constitution met in which city?

Delegates met from May 25 to September 17, and 39 of the 55 signed the finished document.

British troops burned the White House and Capitol in August 1814 during which war?

Britain had freed up forces for North America after the fighting in Europe eased in the spring of 1814.

Key's "Star-Spangled Banner" lyrics describe the 1814 bombardment of which place?

The British bombardment during the Battle of Baltimore lasted about 25 hours.

Which Mexican general led the troops that retook the Alamo in 1836?

The 13-day siege ended on March 6, and the executions of surrendering defenders spurred many Texians to join the Texian Army.

Which 1830 law set in motion the forced relocations known as the Trail of Tears?

The Cherokee removal of 1838 was the last east of the Mississippi, triggered partly by a gold find near Dahlonega, Georgia.

Sutter's Mill, where gold was found in January 1848, is in which California town?

News of the find drew roughly 300,000 people to California, about half by sea and half overland.

Harriet Tubman rescued roughly how many enslaved people on her Underground Railroad missions?

She later guided the Combahee Ferry raid in the Civil War, which liberated more than 700 people in a single operation.

The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 was fought in which state?

Confederate troops had occupied the town on June 26 after chasing off a newly raised emergency militia regiment.

Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, in the parlor of whose house?

McLean had moved to Appomattox after the first major battle of the war was fought near his earlier home at Manassas.

Lincoln was watching which play at Ford's Theatre when he was shot in April 1865?

Booth and his conspirators had originally plotted to kidnap the president rather than kill him.

Which engineer built the metal framework inside the Statue of Liberty?

The copper-clad statue was a gift from the people of France and was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The USS Maine exploded and sank in which harbor in February 1898?

The blast killed 268 sailors, three-quarters of the crew, and helped push the US into the Spanish-American War two months later.

In what year did the Ford Motor Company start producing the Model T?

Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T roll off the line in May 1927, the car's final year of production.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June 1914 in which city?

The archduke and his wife were in town to open a state museum in its new premises when Gavrilo Princip shot them.

About how many minutes did the Lusitania take to sink after being torpedoed in 1915?

Only six of several dozen lifeboats were successfully lowered, and 1,198 of the 1,960 people aboard died.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 in which room of the palace?

The signing on 28 June fell on the fifth anniversary of the assassination that had triggered the war.

Pearl Harbor, attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, is on which Hawaiian island?

The raid killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 others.

What was the nickname of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945?

It was a gun-type weapon using enriched uranium, while the bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later used plutonium.

Anne Frank's family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex in which city?

The annex was concealed behind a bookcase in the building where her father Otto worked.

How many nations were represented at the first UN General Assembly in January 1946?

The UN had formally come into existence the previous October, once the five permanent Security Council members ratified the Charter.

Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color line in 1947 with which team?

General manager Branch Rickey had scouted him from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955 in which Alabama city?

She had been secretary of the city's NAACP chapter since 1943, long before the bus boycott made her famous.

The 1954 school segregation case Brown v. Board of Education came from which city?

The Supreme Court's decision was unanimous and became a model for later impact litigation.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave "I Have a Dream" in 1963 from the steps of which landmark?

More than 250,000 people heard it during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28.

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, in which year?

It went up on 4 October, which was already 5 October at the launch site in Kazakhstan.

How many prisoners were inside the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789?

Four of them were forgers; the fortress mattered far more as a symbol and an armoury than as a prison.

Howard Carter discovered the intact tomb of which pharaoh in November 1922?

Carter had been digging for his patron Lord Carnarvon since 1907, and the tomb remains the best-preserved ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

Which American historian brought Machu Picchu to international attention in 1911?

The site was already known locally and had been reached earlier by the Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began in a bakery on which street?

It broke out shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September, and wind turned it into a firestorm before demolitions could stop it.

Gandhi's 1930 Salt March from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi lasted how many days?

The walk covered about 240 miles and protested the British monopoly on salt.

How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison before becoming South Africa's president?

He was held first on Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor and Victor Verster prisons.

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic in which year?

She received the Distinguished Flying Cross for the feat, five years after Lindbergh's solo crossing inspired her generation of pilots.