The History Marathon

What this quiz asks

• Carthage, Rome's great rival in North Africa, was founded by which seafaring people?
• The brick city of Mohenjo-daro, with its drains and grid streets, belonged to which civilization?
• The ancient Olympic Games were held in honour of Zeus.
• Put these moments from the ancient world in order, earliest first.
• Select ALL of these that were counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
• Which ancient African kingdom ruled from the city of Meroë, south of Egypt?
• Which ruler unified China in 221 BCE and was buried guarded by the Terracotta Army?
• Rows of columns under a triangular pediment are the signature of which civilization's temples?
• Which Athenian leader oversaw the building of the Parthenon during the city's golden age?
• Which Mauryan emperor embraced Buddhism after the costly war in Kalinga and spread it widely?
• Which Roman leader was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BCE?
• The eruption of which volcano buried the Roman town of Pompeii in 79 CE?
• Was the House of Wisdom, a celebrated centre of translation and learning, located in Baghdad?
• Select ALL of these that were Islamic dynasties or caliphates.
• Al-Andalus was the name given to Muslim-ruled territory on which peninsula?
• Who united the Mongol tribes and founded the Mongol Empire in 1206?
• Mansa Musa, whose 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca became legendary, ruled which West African empire?
• The Hundred Years' War between England and France actually lasted how many years?
• The Great Wall of China is easily visible to the naked eye from the Moon.
• Order these medieval milestones from earliest to latest.
• Whose printing press, developed in Mainz around 1450, helped books spread across Europe?
• The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided newly encountered lands between which two crowns?
• Order these voyages and conquests from earliest to latest.
• Ferdinand Magellan personally completed the first voyage around the world.
• Which Inca ruler was captured by Francisco Pizarro's expedition in 1532?
• Select ALL of these foods that Europeans first encountered in the Americas.
• The United States Constitution was written before the French Revolution began.
• Order these revolutionary events from earliest to latest.
• Which French king was tried and executed during the French Revolution in 1793?
• Which leader is known as 'El Libertador' for helping free several South American countries from Spain?
• The Meiji Restoration of 1868 began the rapid modernisation of which country?
• Whose improved steam engine, patented in 1769, became a workhorse of the Industrial Revolution?
• Which country opened the world's first public steam-hauled railway, in 1825?
• Which US president issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863?
• Select ALL of these that were invented during the 19th century.
• The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 set out how European powers would divide up which continent?
• Which 1916 battle saw French and German armies fight for ten months around a fortress city on the Meuse?
• Order these events from the age of the world wars, earliest first.
• Which battle of 1942-43 turned the tide of the war on the Eastern Front?
• The Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944 are better known by what name?
• Select ALL of these countries that fought as Allies in the Second World War.
• Select ALL of these countries that became permanent members of the UN Security Council in 1945.
• In which year did India and Pakistan become independent from British rule?
• The Marshall Plan was an American programme to help rebuild Western Europe after the Second World War.
• Which military alliance did Western nations create in 1949?
• Kwame Nkrumah led which country to independence from Britain in 1957?
• The 1962 missile crisis that brought the superpowers to the brink of war centred on which island?
• For how many years did the Berlin Wall stand, from 1961 until it was opened in 1989?
• Order these later 20th-century events from earliest to latest.
• Which territory did Britain hand back to China in 1997?