Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free History and Geography trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
History and geography are the two rounds every pub quiz leans on, and the best questions sit where they meet: a calendar quirk that moved a revolution by a fortnight, a war that was over before the kettle boiled. This round alternates the two subjects question by question, so nobody at the table gets to coast. The 50 questions range across every continent and three thousand years: the queen who lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids, the state that is somehow its country's easternmost and westernmost, the peaceful divorce that split one nation in two, the nutmeg island traded for Manhattan. Each answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds the detail a good quizmaster would read out. Use it as a ready-made round for a quiz night, a warm-up for a trivia team, or a quick test of how much of school actually stuck. Play on your phone with instant feedback, or print the lot for the table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Egyptian queen, who died in 30 BC, lived closer to the Moon landing than to the Great Pyramid's construction?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra died about 2,570 years after the Great Pyramid rose around 2600 BC, but only 1,998 years before Apollo 11 landed in 1969. She was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Q 02Which country, the largest on Earth without a permanent river, gets about half its drinking water from desalination?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the world without permanent rivers, so around 50% of its drinking water comes from desalinated seawater. Seasonal wadis carry water only after rare rains.
Q 03Which US state is simultaneously the northernmost, westernmost and, thanks to the Aleutian Islands, easternmost?
Alaska
Alaska counts as the easternmost state as well as the northernmost and westernmost because the Aleutian Islands stretch across the 180th meridian into the Eastern Hemisphere. Its Utqiagvik is the northernmost US city.
Q 04Which sultanate fought Britain on 27 August 1896 in a war that was over in under 45 minutes?
Zanzibar
Zanzibar surrendered after 38 to 45 minutes of British naval bombardment, making the Anglo-Zanzibar War the shortest recorded war in history. Britain then installed a sultan of its own choosing.
Q 05Through which country's canal does an Atlantic-to-Pacific ship actually travel from northwest to southeast?
Panama
Panama's isthmus bends so sharply that the canal runs from northwest to southeast, leaving its Pacific end about a third of a degree east of its Atlantic end at Colón. Full control passed to Panama on 31 December 1999.
Q 06Which English university, teaching by 1096, is more than three centuries older than the Aztec Empire?
Oxford
Oxford had teaching by 1096, over three hundred years before the Aztec Empire's Triple Alliance formed in 1428, and it is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Its press is the largest university press on Earth.
Q 07Which country, on 1 April 2001, became the first in the world to legalise same-sex marriage?
Netherlands
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, its law taking effect on 1 April 2001 after Queen Beatrix gave royal assent on 21 December 2000. Amsterdam's mayor conducted the first ceremonies.
Q 08Which bay between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has the highest tidal range on Earth, averaging about 16 metres?
Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy's tides average about 16 metres against a worldwide average of one metre, because its funnel-shaped basin resonates with the Atlantic tide. Around 100 billion tonnes of water flow in and out every half-day cycle.
Q 09Which South Asian country elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, making her the world's first female prime minister?
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, then still called Ceylon, swore in Sirimavo Bandaranaike on 21 July 1960 after her Freedom Party's landslide. She served three separate terms, the last ending with her retirement in 2000.
Q 10Which Southeast Asian archipelago of about 7,641 islands has Luzon and Mindanao as its two largest?
Philippines
The Philippines counts about 7,641 islands spread over some 300,000 square kilometres of land, grouped into Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The first Austronesian settlers arrived from Taiwan around 2200 BC.
Q 11Which African country, bordering the Spanish exclaves Ceuta and Melilla, has both an Atlantic and a Mediterranean coast?
Morocco
Morocco's coast runs along the Atlantic Ocean and reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Spanish-held Ceuta and Melilla sitting on its northern shore. The disputed Western Sahara lies to its south.
Q 12Which country was carved up by three neighbours in 1772, 1793 and 1795 and vanished from the map for 123 years?
Poland
Poland disappeared when its three imperial neighbours completed the third partition in October 1795, and it did not return as a sovereign state until 1918. The Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 had failed to prevent it.
Q 13Which Italian volcano, in an almost constant state of activity and about 3,400 m tall, is the most active in Europe?
Q 21Which Caribbean island, the second-largest after Cuba, is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic?
Hispaniola
Hispaniola covers 76,192 km², with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic holding the eastern two-thirds and French- and Creole-speaking Haiti the west; it is the most populous island in the West Indies.
Q 22Which civilisation's Long Count calendar ended a 5,126-year cycle on 21 December 2012, sparking doomsday predictions?
Maya
The Maya Long Count's zero date falls on 11 August 3114 BC, so 21 December 2012 merely closed a bʼakʼtun cycle; festivities were held at Chichén Itzá and Tikal rather than the apocalypse some New Age writers foretold.
Q 23What fills the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, its northern and southern edges skirted by two branches of the Silk Road?
Etna
Etna rises about 3,403 m above eastern Sicily, making it the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps, and it erupted as many as 16 times in 2001 alone. Its height changes with every summit eruption.
Q 14In which Central American country do bull sharks swim up the San Juan River into the region's largest freshwater lake?
Nicaragua
Nicaragua's great lake, Cocibolca, holds sawfish, tarpon and bull sharks, which leap the San Juan River's rapids almost like salmon to reach the Caribbean. At 8,264 km² it is Central America's largest lake.
Q 15Which Norse explorer, founder of the settlement the sagas call Vinland, reached America five centuries before Columbus?
Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, about 500 years before Columbus, and the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland was occupied roughly 1,000 years ago.
Q 16Which sandy, semi-arid expanse, with the vast Makgadikgadi salt pans, covers much of Botswana and parts of Namibia?
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert's 900,000 km² of sandy savanna take in much of Botswana plus parts of Namibia and South Africa, and its wider basin stretches into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Being semi-arid, it supports grasses and acacia trees.
Q 17Which country split peacefully into two republics on 1 January 1993, in what was dubbed the 'Velvet Divorce'?
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia's Velvet Divorce took its name from the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989 that had ended Communist rule; the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated without any referendum being held. Both entered the EU on 1 May 2004.
Q 18Which Asian capital was known as Batavia under Dutch rule until the Japanese occupation renamed it in 1942?
Jakarta
Jakarta was rebuilt as Batavia by the Dutch East India Company after it seized the city in 1619, a name that lasted until 1942; today Greater Jakarta is the most populous urban area on Earth, with over 40 million people.
Q 19Which country lost about a quarter of its population to death and emigration in the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852?
Ireland
Ireland's population fell by 20–25% between 1841 and 1871 as roughly one million people died and over a million more emigrated after potato blight destroyed the crop the poor depended on. Some towns lost two-thirds of their people.
Q 20Which South American country, independent from the Dutch since 1975, is the continent's smallest by area and population?
Suriname
Suriname gained independence on 25 November 1975 and keeps Dutch as its official language; with about 613,000 people on 165,940 km², it is South America's smallest country and one of the least densely populated on Earth.
Taklamakan Desert
The Taklamakan Desert lies inside the Tarim Basin, hemmed in by the Kunlun, Pamir and Tian Shan ranges, and ranks about 15th among the world's largest deserts; caravans hugged its edges to avoid the interior.
Q 24Which US president bought Louisiana from France in 1803 for $15 million, nearly doubling the country's territory?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson had long wanted New Orleans, and Napoleon offered all of Louisiana after failing to crush the revolt in Saint-Domingue and facing renewed war with Britain; the 828,000 square miles cost under three cents an acre.
Q 25Which mountain range, with the microstate Andorra sandwiched inside it, seals off the Iberian Peninsula from Europe?
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees extend nearly 500 km to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, peaking at 3,404 m on Aneto, with their main crest forming Spain's northern border and Andorra tucked into the eastern section of the range.
Q 26Which country was proclaimed an empire in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors in January 1871, inside a defeated enemy's palace?
Germany
Germany's princes proclaimed Prussia's King Wilhelm I as German Emperor at Versailles, in the very hall whose ceiling celebrated Louis XIV as a conqueror of German cities; Bismarck had engineered the unification without Austria.
Q 27Which African capital on the Congo River was called Léopoldville from 1881 until 1966?
Kinshasa
Kinshasa took its present name in 1966 during Mobutu Sese Seko's campaign to restore pre-colonial names, honouring the village of Nshasa; it is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Q 28Alexander the Great died in Babylon, in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in June 323 BC at what age?
32
Alexander was 32: a Babylonian astronomical diary records him dying in Nebuchadnezzar II's palace between the evenings of 10 and 11 June 323 BC, after 12 to 14 days of fever; his general Ptolemy later seized the funeral cart in Syria.
Q 29Which country, largely the Ganges–Brahmaputra delta, is the most densely populated large nation on Earth?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh packs about 1,265 people into each square kilometre of the Ganges Delta, the world's largest river delta, and ranks as the eighth most populous country; it won independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Q 30Which country's highest peak, the 5,137 m volcano Ararat, is the traditional resting place of Noah's Ark?
Turkey
Turkey's Greater Ararat rises to 5,137 m in the far east of the country, yet the mountain is Armenia's principal national symbol and appears on its coat of arms with Noah's Ark. Persian tradition calls it the 'mountain of Noah'.