European History Trivia
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This European history trivia quiz has 217 free questions with answers and runs from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC to the night the Berlin Wall opened in 1989. In between you will meet Charlemagne, the Black Death, Magna Carta, the Defenestration of Prague, Luther's theses, the Spanish Armada, Louis XIV, Napoleon, the unification of Italy and Germany, the Romanovs, Stalingrad and the Treaty of Rome. It is built for pub-quiz regulars, history teachers looking for ready-made rounds, and anyone who wants to test whether the dates and names from school actually stuck. Roughly a third of the questions are straightforward, a third are medium, and the rest will stretch even confident historians with details like who chaired the Congress of Vienna or how many exemplifications of Magna Carta survive. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference page, and the source sentence is shown under each question, so you can settle arguments on the spot.
30 of 217 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly what share of Europe's population did the Black Death kill between 1346 and 1353?
30% to 60%
The Black Death killed an estimated 30% to 60% of Europeans, perhaps 25 to 50 million people; the continent's population did not regain its 14th-century level until the 16th century.
Q 02Genoese traders reportedly carried plague into Europe in 1347 from which Crimean port?
Kaffa
Genoese ships fleeing besieged Kaffa (modern Feodosia) in Crimea carried Yersinia pestis to Messina in 1347; the Mongol besiegers reportedly catapulted plague corpses over Kaffa's walls.
Q 03Which sultan's forces captured Constantinople on 29 May 1453?
Mehmed II
He was only 21 at the time and was later nicknamed 'the Conqueror'.
Q 04How many days did the Ottoman siege of Constantinople last in 1453?
53
The siege lasted 53 days, from 6 April to 29 May 1453; Orban's great bombard, some 27 feet long, hurled 600-pound stone balls at the Theodosian Walls.
Q 05During the 1453 siege, Ottoman ships were dragged overland on greased logs into which waterway?
The Golden Horn
Mehmed's ships were hauled over the Galata ridge on greased logs into the Golden Horn, bypassing the great chain that barred the inlet's mouth from the Bosphorus.
Q 06Weeks before losing at Hastings in 1066, Harold Godwinson won which battle on 25 September?
Stamford Bridge
At Stamford Bridge, east of York, Harold's army killed both Harald Hardrada of Norway and Harold's brother Tostig on 25 September 1066, nineteen days before Hastings.
Q 07The 1618 Defenestration of Prague is credited with triggering which war?
Thirty Years' War
The 1618 defenestration launched the Bohemian Revolt that opened the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648); an earlier 1419 defenestration by Hussites had set off the Hussite Wars.
Q 08Protestant pamphleteers claimed the men thrown from a Prague window in 1618 survived by landing on what?
A dung heap
The dung heap was the Protestant retort to Catholic claims of angelic rescue; all three men, Martinitz, Slavata and the secretary Fabricius, survived the roughly 70-foot fall.
Q 09On 31 October 1517 Luther sent his theses to Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of which city?
Mainz
Albert of Brandenburg was Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg; Luther's dated letter to him on 31 October 1517 is firmer evidence than the door-posting story, first told by Melanchthon in 1546.
Q 10Which preacher's 1517 indulgence campaign near Wittenberg drew locals to buy pardons, provoking Luther?
Johann Tetzel
Luther's theses aired misgivings about indulgences and their relation to repentance and papal authority.
Q 11How many prisoners were inside the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789?
Seven
The governor, de Launay, was killed after surrendering; 14 July is now France's national holiday.
Q 12Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769 in which town?
Ajaccio
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio on Corsica's west coast, a year after France acquired the island from Genoa in 1768.
Q 13After abdicating in April 1814, Napoleon was exiled to which Mediterranean island?
Elba
Elba held Napoleon for under a year; he escaped, lost at Waterloo in June 1815 and was shipped to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.
Q 21Which pope crowned Charlemagne emperor at St Peter's on Christmas Day 800?
Leo III
Leo III placed the crown on Charlemagne's head at St Peter's on 25 December 800; Charlemagne had already been King of the Franks since 768.
Q 22Charlemagne built his great palace and chapel in which city?
Aachen
Charlemagne made Aachen his chief residence, raising its Palatine Chapel in the 790s; he died there in 814 and is buried in what is now Aachen Cathedral.
Q 23Who commanded the Spanish Armada that sailed from Lisbon in May 1588?
Duke of Medina Sidonia
The Duke of Medina Sidonia, a reluctant landsman, took command after the Marquis of Santa Cruz died in February 1588; Philip II sent the fleet against Elizabeth I.
Q 14What did Napoleon sell to the United States in 1803?
Louisiana
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transferred about 828,000 square miles to the United States for roughly $15 million, nearly doubling the young republic's territory.
Q 15Napoleon died in 1821, aged 51, of what cause?
Stomach cancer
Stomach cancer was the finding of the 1821 autopsy on Saint Helena; arsenic theories circulated for decades, but his father Carlo had died of the same disease in 1785.
Q 16Magna Carta was agreed between King John and his rebel barons on 15 June 1215 at which water-meadow beside the Thames?
Runnymede
Runnymede, a water-meadow on the south bank of the Thames, is where it was sealed; Archbishop Stephen Langton drafted it to make peace between John and the barons.
Q 17Which pope annulled the 1215 Magna Carta, helping trigger the First Barons' War?
Innocent III
Innocent III declared the charter 'null and void of all validity for ever' in a bull of 24 August 1215; it was reissued in revised form after John's death in 1216.
Q 18How many exemplifications of the original 1215 Magna Carta survive?
Four
Two are at the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral.
Q 19What did East German authorities officially call the Berlin Wall?
Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart
The GDR called it the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart'; construction began on 13 August 1961, and at least 140 people died trying to cross it.
Q 20In which year did East Germany open the Berlin Wall on 9 November?
1989
On 9 November 1989 Günter Schabowski's muddled press conference led guards at Bornholmer Strasse to open the crossings that night; the inner-city border alone ran 43 km.
Q 24Up to how many Armada ships were wrecked on the Irish coast in 1588?
24
Up to 24 Armada ships were wrecked along 500 km of Irish coast from Antrim to Kerry after English fire ships scattered the anchored fleet and autumn gales drove the survivors onto the rocks.
Q 25Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June 1914 in which city?
Sarajevo
Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot in Sarajevo, capital of Austrian-annexed Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, one of six Young Bosnia conspirators posted along the route.
Q 26How did the archduke's car end up stopped right beside Gavrilo Princip in 1914?
The driver stalled it while reversing
Earlier that morning a bomb thrown by Čabrinović bounced off the folded car roof and wounded 16 to 20 bystanders.
Q 27Which Portuguese navigator first rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488?
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, proving a sea route to the Indian Ocean existed; Vasco da Gama reached India by that route in 1498.
Q 28The Hundred Years' War between England and France actually lasted how many years?
116
Counted from Edward III's 1337 claim to the French throne to the 1453 battle of Castillon, the war ran 116 years in Edwardian, Caroline and Lancastrian phases.
Q 29Which English king won at Agincourt in 1415?
Henry V
Henry V won at Agincourt in 1415; the tide turned against England after the Siege of Orléans in 1428–29, and Joan of Arc was executed in 1431.
Q 30After the Hundred Years' War, England kept one continental foothold until 1558. Which?
Calais
It fell during the reign of Mary I, a loss she reportedly said would be found written on her heart.