How well do you know the past?

How this history quiz works

Every quiz pulls 10 questions from across history, one era at a time, so you never get ten questions about the same war. You see the answer the moment you pick, with a line on what really happened, and a score and rank at the end.

• Standard quiz: 10 questions spread across every era.
• Today's quiz: the same 10 for everyone, new every day.
• Quick 5: five questions for when you have two minutes.
• Era quizzes: drill one period, like the Vikings or the Thirty Years' War.

Sample history quiz questions

Here are a few of the questions in the quiz, with answers, so you can see the kind of thing it asks. They lean on the story behind an event rather than on memorising dates.

1. Tiberius Gracchus carried one of the best names in Rome. Who was his grandfather?
   Answer: Scipio Africanus. His grandfather was Scipio Africanus, the general who beat Carthage, Rome's great enemy.
2. In June 793, raiders from Scandinavia looted the church and killed monks on which holy island off the coast of Northumbria?
   Answer: Lindisfarne. Ships crossed the North Sea and landed on Lindisfarne, home of Saint Cuthbert's body. The raiders dug up the altars and took every treasure they could carry.
3. Who was crowned king of England at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066?
   Answer: William, Duke of Normandy. King Harold was killed late in the day at Hastings, along with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. On Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned at Westminster.
4. Whom did Henry VIII marry eleven days after Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536?
   Answer: Jane Seymour. Anne was beheaded on 19 May 1536 by a swordsman brought from across the Channel. Eleven days later Henry married Jane Seymour.
5. When Blackbeard blockaded Charleston in 1718 and held some of its leading citizens prisoner, what did he demand?
   Answer: A chest of medicine. His men badly needed medicine. Charleston sent it after the deadline slipped, and Blackbeard freed the prisoners, minus their gold, silver and fine clothes.
6. In Operation Mincemeat in 1943, what did British intelligence use to fool Hitler about the invasion of Sicily?
   Answer: A dead body carrying fake secret letters. The body of Glyndwr Michael, dressed as Major William Martin, was put into the sea off Spain. Hitler moved troops to Greece and Sardinia.

How to get better at history quizzes

The people who do best on history quizzes rarely know the most dates. They know the stories: who wanted what, who was in the way, and what happened next. Once you know that Caesar's enemies wanted him prosecuted the moment he gave up his army, the Rubicon question answers itself. So when you miss a question, read the explanation rather than just noting the right letter. It usually carries the story that makes the answer obvious next time.

It also helps to work era by era. Ten random questions from across three thousand years is hard for anyone. Pick the era you got wrong most, take its quiz, then come back to the full quiz a day later. The results screen suggests your weakest era for exactly this reason. And come back for the daily quiz: a little every day beats a long session once a month.

Why quizzing yourself helps you remember

Taking a quiz isn't only a way to measure what you know; it's one of the best ways to learn it. Psychologists call this the testing effect. In a well-known study, students who practised recalling a passage remembered far more of it a week later than students who spent the same time rereading it (Roediger and Karpicke, Psychological Science, 2006). Getting a question wrong and then seeing the answer works too: the surprise makes the right answer stick.

That's the idea behind Augur as well. Every story ends with you making the decisions the real people faced, so you use what you've just learned instead of only reading it.

What the questions cover

Want them all at once, with answers? See the full list of history trivia questions and answers.

Questions