Q 01/05

Which inscribed slab, found by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799, gave scholars the key to reading hieroglyphs?

A) The Narmer Palette

B) The Rosetta Stone

C) The Behistun Inscription

D) The Palermo Stone

Answer · why

B) The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone repeats one decree in three scripts, and the Ancient Greek at the bottom let Jean-François Champollion work out the Egyptian above i...

Q 02/05

Which queen of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty allied herself with Julius Caesar and then with Mark Antony?

A) Nefertiti

B) Hatshepsut

C) Cleopatra

D) Arsinoe

Answer · why

C) Cleopatra

Cleopatra is the only ruler of her Greek-speaking family known to have learned Egyptian, the language of the people she governed.

Q 03/05

Which volcano buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pumice in AD 79?

A) Mount Vesuvius

B) Mount Etna

C) Mount Stromboli

D) Campi Flegrei

Answer · why

A) Mount Vesuvius

Mount Vesuvius left one eyewitness account: Pliny the Younger watched from across the Bay of Naples and described the eruption in two letters.

Q 04/05

Which charter did rebel barons force King John of England to seal at Runnymede in 1215?

A) Provisions of Oxford

B) Charter of the Forest

C) Petition of Right

D) Magna Carta

Answer · why

D) Magna Carta

Magna Carta failed at first: neither side kept its word, the pope annulled it, and England slid into the First Barons' War.

Q 05/05

Which Mongol ruler, born Temüjin, founded the largest contiguous land empire in history?

A) Kublai Khan

B) Genghis Khan

C) Attila the Hun

D) Tamerlane

Answer · why

B) Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan was a title, taken at a great assembly in 1206; as a boy he had lost his father and seen his family abandoned by its tribe.