History quiz questions and answers

Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was a giant statue made by the sculptor Phidias?

Who was the first emperor of Rome?

Which Greek city-state sent 300 soldiers to hold the pass at Thermopylae?

Whose almost intact tomb did Howard Carter discover in Egypt in 1922?

Which Roman writer described the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 in two famous letters?

Which queen of Egypt had relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony?

Who was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, killed at the Battle of Hastings?

Which king broke with Rome and made himself head of the Church of England?

Before Elizabeth II, who was Britain's longest-reigning monarch?

Which king was executed in 1649, after the English Civil War?

What illness was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, said to have died of in 1861?

Which king gave up the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson?

On what date did Britain declare war on Germany in 1939?

Which battle of 1916 saw nearly 20,000 British soldiers killed on its first day?

What was the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944?

Which air battle was fought over southern England in the summer of 1940?

Which civil wars were fought between the houses of Lancaster and York?

In which modern-day country was the Battle of Waterloo fought?

Which dog became the first animal to orbit the Earth, in 1957?

What was the name of Apollo 11's lunar module, which landed on the Moon in 1969?

Who was accused of assassinating John F. Kennedy in 1963?

On which island was Nelson Mandela imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years in jail?

Which prime minister told Britain it was at war with Germany in September 1939?

Which future prime minister was nicknamed the Iron Lady by a Soviet newspaper in 1976?

Who invented the World Wide Web in 1989?

Which Scottish inventor gave the first public demonstration of television, in 1926?

Which Cambridge college was Isaac Newton a fellow of?

In which US state did the Wright brothers make the first powered aeroplane flight, in 1903?

Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

According to his notes, what were the first words Alexander Graham Bell spoke over the telephone?

Which English king was nicknamed Longshanks?

Which queen reigned for only nine days in 1553?

What was the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to America in 1620?

Which empire was ruled from Constantinople until the city fell in 1453?

Who is regarded as Britain's first prime minister?

Which ancient city was said to have the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders?