This European history trivia quiz has 170 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 170 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 continent's population did not climb back to its 14th-century level until the 16th century.
Q 02Genoese traders reportedly carried plague into Europe in 1347 from which Crimean port?
Kaffa
The disease itself is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread mainly by flea bites.
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 04The 1453 siege of Constantinople, which began on 6 April, lasted how many days?
53
Orban's giant bombard was 27 feet long and could hurl a 600-pound stone ball more than a mile.
Q 05During the 1453 siege, Ottoman ships were dragged overland on greased logs into which waterway?
The Golden Horn
The road of greased logs ran across Galata, bypassing the chain that blocked the harbour mouth.
Q 06Weeks before losing at Hastings in 1066, Harold Godwinson won which battle on 25 September?
Stamford Bridge
Harald Hardrada and Harold's own brother Tostig were both killed there; Hastings itself was fought about 7 miles from the town, near present-day Battle.
Q 07The 1618 Defenestration of Prague is credited with triggering which war?
Thirty Years' War
An earlier defenestration in 1419 saw Hussites throw members of the city council from a window.
Q 08Protestant pamphleteers claimed the men thrown from a Prague window in 1618 survived by landing on what?
A dung heap
The 70-foot fall was survived by all three men; Catholics credited divine intervention, and the pamphleteers' story was unknown to contemporaries.
Q 09On 31 October 1517 Luther sent his theses to Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of which city?
Mainz
The famous door-posting story rests on a later claim by Melanchthon that conflicts with Luther's own accounts.
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
The town is on Corsica, which had only become French the year before his birth.
Q 13After abdicating in April 1814, Napoleon was exiled to which Mediterranean island?
Elba
He escaped within a year, only to be beaten at Waterloo in June 1815 and shipped to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.
What did Napoleon sell to the United States in 1803?
Q 21Which pope crowned Charlemagne emperor at St Peter's on Christmas Day 800?
Leo III
Charlemagne had already been King of the Franks since 768; historians call him the 'Father of Europe'.
Q 22Charlemagne built his great palace and chapel in which city?
Aachen
He died there in 814 and was buried in the Palatine Chapel, now part of the city's cathedral.
Q 23Who commanded the Spanish Armada that sailed from Lisbon in May 1588?
Duke of Medina Sidonia
The fleet numbered 141 ships when it left Lisbon; Philip II sent it against Elizabeth I.
Louisiana
The Napoleonic Code, his legal reform, is often called his most enduring legacy.
Q 15Napoleon died in 1821, aged 51, of what cause?
Stomach cancer
Arsenic-poisoning theories circulated for decades, but the standard account is a cancer that also killed his father.
Q 16Magna Carta was agreed on 15 June 1215 at which water-meadow beside the Thames?
Runnymede
It was drafted by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to make peace between King John and rebel barons.
Q 17Which pope annulled the 1215 Magna Carta, helping trigger the First Barons' War?
Innocent III
The annulment came within weeks; the charter was reissued in revised forms after King John's death.
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
Construction began on 13 August 1961, and estimates of people killed trying to cross range from 136 to more than 200.
Q 20In which year did East Germany open the Berlin Wall on 9 November?
1989
The border between West and East Berlin alone ran 43.1 km.
Q 24Returning home around Scotland and Ireland, the Armada lost up to how many ships to wreck?
24
English fire ships had scattered the fleet at night before storms finished the job.
Q 25Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June 1914 in which city?
Sarajevo
His wife Sophie was killed too; the assassin was part of a group of six later known as Young Bosnia.
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 27How many round-trip voyages to the Americas did Columbus make in all?
Four
Born in the Republic of Genoa around 1451, he died at Valladolid on 20 May 1506.
Q 28The Hundred Years' War between England and France actually lasted how many years?
116
Historians split it into Edwardian, Caroline and Lancastrian phases.
Q 29Which English king won at Agincourt in 1415?
Henry V
The tide turned 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.