History50 randomly selected History questions for quizmasters. New random selection made weekly. Next update: Monday 20th July 2026 (Please note: Questions are taken from our database of previous quizzes. Some questions and answers may be outdated.) |
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| 1. | Who succeeded Calvin Coolidge as President of the United States in 1929? |
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Herbert Hoover | |
| 2. | Who resigned as French President in April 1969? |
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Charles de Gaulle | |
| 3. | The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8th April 1904 between what two countries? |
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U.K. and France | |
| 4. | Since being retired from active service in 2008, in which city has the QE2 ocean liner been docked amid a cloud of uncertainty about its future? |
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Dubai (Port Rashid) | |
| 5. | Who was East Germany's Head of State between 1976 and the country's dissolution in 1989? |
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Erich Honecker | |
| 6. | What was the name of the Bismarck-class battleship sunk in a Norwegian fjord by RAF "Tallboy" bombs on 12th November 1944? |
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Tirpitz | |
| 7. | What name is given to the group of 750,000 year old human fossils first discovered during excavations at Zhoukoudian near Beijing in 1923? |
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Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) | |
| 8. | Who was responsible for the Barings Bank collapse in 1995? |
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Nick Leeson | |
| 9. | Sort these geological periods in date order; oldest first, most recent last: A. Jurassic B. Cretaceous C. Triassic |
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C A B (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous) | |
| 10. | The largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history, around 9,400, what was the name of the German military transport ship sunk on 30th January 1945 by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea? |
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MV Wilhelm Gustloff | |
| 11. | Who was named U.S. president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? |
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Andrew Johnson | |
| 12. | To what was Madras State in India renamed in 1969? |
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Tamil Nadu | |
| 13. | To what was the city of Petrograd renamed in 1924? |
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Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) | |
| 14. | To which of his six wives was England's King Henry VIII married for the longest time? |
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Catherine of Aragon (almost 24 years) | |
| 15. | During his voyage of 1605-1606, Willem Janszoon became the first European known to have seen the coast of what modern-day country? |
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Australia | |
| 16. | What canal took 10 years to build and opened in November 1869? |
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The Suez Canal | |
| 17. | The former Soviet "Committee for State Security" was better known as what? |
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KGB (Комитет государственной безопасности, Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) | |
| 18. | Named after the religious day on which it began, what was the 1973 war between the Arab states and Israel called? |
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Yom Kippur War (aka Ramadan War / October War) | |
| 19. | In January 2011, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to quit as President of what country? |
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Tunisia | |
| 20. | For what is 17th century Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan best known? |
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Taj Mahal | |
| 21. | In what year did Bill Gates and Paul Allen found a small company called Microsoft? |
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1975 (4th April) | |
| 22. | What former U.S. President died on 22th April 1994? |
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Richard Nixon | |
| 23. | Before the introduction of 33⅓ and 45 rpm vinyl records, what brittle material was used to make 78 rpm discs? |
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Shellac | |
| 24. | Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared in 1967 while doing what? |
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Swimming (at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Melbourne, Victoria, presumed drowned) | |
| 25. | Archaeologists confirmed in 2013 that a skeleton found under a Leicester car park was that of what King of England? |
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Richard III | |
| 26. | Born in 1867, what was the name of the Titanic survivor posthumously nicknamed "The Unsinkable ..."? |
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Molly Brown | |
| 27. | Ceding Florida to the U.S. in 1819, the Adams-Onis Treaty was an agreement made between the United States and what country? |
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Spain (also defining the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain) | |
| 28. | What was the name of the Greenpeace ship sunk in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, on 10th July 1985? |
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Rainbow Warrior | |
| 29. | What city was the capital of the Byzantine Empire (330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922)? |
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Constantinople | |
| 30. | In which century did Constantinople fall to the Ottomans, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire? |
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15th (1453) | |
| 31. | In what year was the Twenty-first Amendment ratified, officially ending prohibition in the United States? |
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1933 (5th December) | |
| 32. | The transistor radio, integrated circuit, videotape, and correction fluid were all invented in what decade of the 20th century? |
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The 1950s | |
| 33. | Who was most famously accused and convicted in the Rivonia Trial of 1963-64? |
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Nelson Mandela | |
| 34. | What took place on 28th March 1979 in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, making news headlines worldwide? |
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Three Mile Island Accident (Core meltdown) | |
| 35. | What name was given to the long series of military interventions by the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between 1898 and 1934? |
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The Banana Wars | |
| 36. | What was the name of the supertanker that ran aground off the coast of Cornwall in 1967, causing the worst oil spill in British history? |
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SS Torrey Canyon | |
| 37. | The Siege of Mafeking occurred during which war? |
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Boer War (Second Boer War) | |
| 38. | What 19th century statesman was nicknamed the "Iron Chancellor"? |
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Otto von Bismarck | |
| 39. | Between 1951 and 1969, King Idris was the first and only king of what African country? |
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Libya | |
| 40. | What was the name of the prison in Paris stormed by a crowd on 14th July 1789? |
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Bastille (French Revolution) | |
| 41. | Which Russian ballet dancer defected in June 1974 while on tour in Canada? |
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Mikhail Baryshnikov | |
| 42. | What famous protest took place in England in October 1936? |
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Jarrow March/Crusade | |
| 43. | Which American bank robber was shot dead by FBI Agents outside a Chicago cinema in July 1934? |
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John Dillinger | |
| 44. | Between 1953 and 1961, who was Vice President of the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower? |
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Richard Nixon (Richard Milhous Nixon ) | |
| 45. | In which year did Isaac Newton watch an apple fall from a tree, inspiring his famous theory of gravity? |
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1666 | |
| 46. | What war was fought in the mid-17th century between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads? |
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English Civil War | |
| 47. | To whom did Sitting Bull give the nickname "Watanya Cicilla", or "Little Sure Shot"? |
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Annie Oakley | |
| 48. | What 19th century American family produced both typewriters and firearms? |
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Remington (E. Remington and Sons) | |
| 49. | What name is given to the six 19th century Dorset farm labourers sentenced to transportation to Australia for swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers? |
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Tolpuddle Martyrs | |
| 50. | On what British park was the Great Exhibition of 1851 held? |
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Hyde Park (London - The Crystal Palace) | |
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