History Channel
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free History Channel trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The History Channel began with war documentaries and grew into one of the most-watched networks on American television, thanks to pawnbrokers, swamp hunters, treasure seekers and bearded raiders. Along the way it changed its name, picked up a reputation and started more than a few arguments about what counts as history. This quiz covers the whole run: how the network started, the reality shows that made it a ratings giant, the documentary series and their celebrity hosts, and scripted dramas such as Vikings and Hatfields & McCoys. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind each show. It is written for anyone who has lost an evening to Pawn Stars or The Curse of Oak Island. Casual viewers will find plenty they can get, and the later questions should stretch the fans who never change the channel.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A 1997 Salon piece on the History Channel's war-heavy schedule was headlined as all which dictator, all the time?
Hitler
Hitler filled so much airtime that the channel was showing up to 40 hours of World War II programming a week, sometimes 12 hours in a single day.
Q 02In which US city do the Harrison family run the 24-hour shop at the centre of History's Pawn Stars?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas is where the family's shop opened in 1989, less than two miles from the Strip. Television fame has since turned the store into a tourist site in its own right.
Q 03Which animals do Troy Landry and fellow Louisiana hunters pursue for a living on History's Swamp People?
Alligators
Alligators are hunted under a tag system. Each hunter is issued a set number of tags, and the season is over for them the moment they run out.
Q 04Which History series sent Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz through strangers' barns and garages in search of antiques?
American Pickers
American Pickers launched in 2010 from Antique Archaeology, the business Wolfe runs in LeClaire, Iowa. He has been picking since the age of four and has a soft spot for old motorcycles.
Q 05Which History series made Giorgio Tsoukalos and his hair an internet meme?
Ancient Aliens
Ancient Aliens draws on the ideas of author Erich von Däniken, and Tsoukalos has appeared in every episode. He is also one of the show's producers.
Q 06Which Star Trek actor was the host when History's mystery series The UnXplained began in 2019?
William Shatner
William Shatner is also an executive producer of the series, which History ordered in March 2019 with an initial run of just six episodes.
Q 07A 2017 History special claimed a photo showed which lost aviator alive, until a blogger found it in a 1935 book?
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished in 1937, so a picture printed two years earlier could not show them after the crash. History cancelled its repeat showings.
Q 08Which film star won an Emmy playing feuding patriarch Devil Anse Hatfield in History's miniseries Hatfields & McCoys?
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner also supplied music for the series with his own band. The first part drew 13.9 million viewers, the largest audience any History programme had ever had.
Q 09Which animated comedy mocked the History Channel in a 2011 Thanksgiving episode featuring visitors from space?
South Park
South Park called the episode A History Channel Thanksgiving, in which the boys watch a documentary claiming extraterrestrials attended the 1621 feast. Trey Parker wrote and directed it.
Q 10Which British motoring show got a History remake hosted by Tanner Foust, Adam Ferrara and Rutledge Wood?
Top Gear
Top Gear ran on History from 2010 to 2016, teaming racing driver Foust with comedian Ferrara and racing analyst Wood. Discovery had shot its own American pilot back in 2005.
Q 11Which nickname does Austin Russell, a childhood friend of Corey Harrison, go by on History's Pawn Stars?
Chumlee
Chumlee is the butt of the shop's jokes about his competence, but fame paid off: he and Corey could each command $1,000 a night for nightclub appearances.
Q 12Which History series, launched in 2007, spent several seasons with drivers on Alaska's remote Dalton Highway?
Ice Road Truckers
Ice Road Truckers grew out of a one-off History episode from 2000, based on a book by Edith Iglauer. The channel then hired Thom Beers, the producer behind Deadliest Catch, to build a series.
Q 13Which History competition pits four bladesmiths against each other over three rounds for a $10,000 prize?
Forged in Fire
Q 21Which former Marine drill instructor turned film actor answered viewers' military questions on History's Mail Call?
R. Lee Ermey
R. Lee Ermey trained recruits in San Diego in the 1960s before playing Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. He later fronted a second History series, Lock n' Load.
Q 22Which Happy Days star fronted Hazardous History, a 2025 History series named partly after its host?
Henry Winkler
Henry Winkler became a star as Fonzie on the sitcom, which ran from 1974 to 1984, after a small part in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Q 23Which Pawn Stars spin-off follows Danny Koker and his crew as they restore classic automobiles and motorcycles?
Counting Cars
Forged in Fire sends its two finalists back to their own forges with a few days to recreate a historic weapon. The judges then put both weapons through a series of tests before naming a champion.
Q 14History's drama Vikings follows which legendary Norse farmer as raids on England carry him to a Scandinavian throne?
Ragnar Lothbrok
Ragnar Lothbrok comes from 13th-century sagas. His village in the show, Kattegat, is fictional and shares its name with the sea between Denmark and Sweden.
Q 15Which landmark 1977 miniseries about Kunta Kinte and his descendants did History remake in 2016?
Roots
Roots returned with Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka man shipped from The Gambia to colonial Virginia. Both versions adapt Alex Haley's 1976 novel.
Q 16Which comic-book legend hosted a History series that sent a contortionist to find people with superhuman abilities?
Stan Lee
Stan Lee put his name on the show, Stan Lee's Superhumans, which ran from 2010 to 2014. His globe-trotting scout, Daniel Browning Smith, was billed as the most flexible man in the world.
Q 17Tim Allen and Richard Karn reunited on History's More Power in 2022, decades after co-starring in which 1990s sitcom?
Home Improvement
Home Improvement ran on ABC from 1991 to 1999, with Allen as Tim Taylor and Karn as his sidekick Al Borland. By the final season Allen was paid $1.25 million an episode.
Q 18Which Oscar-winning actor hosted a 2021 History series recreating real prison breakouts from Alcatraz and other jails?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman had played a convict himself, as Red in The Shawshank Redemption. Each episode traced one inmate's plan, the escape route and the manhunt that followed.
Q 19Which colour did the History Channel's logo keep for its letter H through rebrands in 2008, 2015 and 2021?
Gold
Gold has marked the H since the network launched in 1995. Each of those three makeovers reshaped the logo and left the colour alone.
Q 20The company that launched the History Channel on New Year's Day 1995 was named after which older network?
A&E
A&E Television Networks had been planning a history channel since 1993, when it bought the Lou Reda Productions documentary library to help fill the schedule.
Counting Cars is set at Count's Kustoms, the workshop owned by Koker, who is known as the Count. He first appeared on Pawn Stars as an expert called in to value vehicles.
Q 24History's drama Knightfall, which added Mark Hamill in its second season, depicts the downfall of which medieval order?
Knights Templar
The Knights Templar were crushed by King Philip IV of France, who moved against the order on 13 October 1307. Hamill played Talus, a veteran who trains the initiates.
Q 25History's military drama Six takes its title from an elite team within which branch of American special forces?
Navy SEALs
Navy SEALs in the unit nicknamed SEAL Team Six officially serve in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. History cancelled the drama after two seasons.
Q 26Which US president appeared on screen to introduce History's documentary series America: The Story of Us?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama was in office when the 12-part series began in April 2010. Liev Schreiber narrated the American broadcast, while Danny Webb voiced the international version.
Q 27In History's The Curse of Oak Island, the Lagina brothers hunt for treasure off the coast of which Canadian province?
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia has drawn treasure hunters to the island for more than 200 years. Rick Lagina is a retired postal worker, and the brothers grew up in Kingsford, Michigan.
Q 28History's drama Vikings is set in Scandinavia and England, yet most of it was filmed in which country?
Ireland
Ireland hosted nearly all of the shoot, on location in County Wicklow and at Ashford Studios, though later seasons added scenes shot in Iceland and Morocco. The series was an Irish-Canadian co-production.
Q 29Which History series made stars of Eustace Conway and trapper Tom Oar as they lived off the land?
Mountain Men
Mountain Men introduced Conway on Turtle Island, his land in the Blue Ridge, which he had to fight to keep when it was threatened by a lien. Oar is a former rodeo cowboy.
Q 30Which technology and engineering series arrived with History in 1995 and became the channel's longest-running programme?
Modern Marvels
Modern Marvels had already aired since 1993 under another title, Time Machine, before moving across. Each episode explains the history and making of a group of related items.