World history quiz — 20 questions with answers.

Who it's for: Ages 13 and up: a history class, a team quiz, or a quiz night with adults.

Use them as a history starter, a team round, or a general knowledge night. Every question has one correct answer. All twenty fit in one Quizoma quiz.

The 20 world history questions with answers

Correct answers are marked with a tick. The same questions, with the same answers, are in the CSV file, in the same order.

The ancient world

1. In which country are the Pyramids of Giza?
   A. Mexico · B. Greece · C. Egypt ✓ · D. Iraq
2. Which of these was a city of the Indus Valley Civilisation?
   A. Mohenjo-daro ✓ · B. Babylon · C. Athens · D. Carthage
3. Where were the first Olympic Games held?
   A. Ancient Greece ✓ · B. Ancient Egypt · C. Ancient Rome · D. Ancient China
4. Who was the first Roman emperor?
   A. Julius Caesar · B. Constantine · C. Augustus ✓ · D. Nero
5. Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World stood in Alexandria?
   A. The Hanging Gardens · B. The Temple of Artemis · C. The Colossus · D. The Lighthouse ✓

The medieval world

6. Who founded the Mughal Empire in 1526?
   A. Humayun · B. Aurangzeb · C. Babur ✓ · D. Akbar
7. Which Mughal emperor built the Taj Mahal?
   A. Shah Jahan ✓ · B. Jahangir · C. Babur · D. Akbar
8. What was Ibn Battuta famous as?
   A. A painter · B. An architect · C. A king · D. A traveller ✓
9. What did the Silk Road connect?
   A. Africa with Australia · B. China with the Mediterranean ✓ · C. India with Antarctica · D. Europe with America
10. Who developed the printing press with movable type in Europe?
    A. Galileo Galilei · B. Christopher Columbus · C. Isaac Newton · D. Johannes Gutenberg ✓

The early modern era

11. In which year did Columbus first reach the Americas?
    A. 1776 · B. 1066 · C. 1815 · D. 1492 ✓
12. In which country did the Industrial Revolution begin?
    A. The United States · B. Japan · C. Britain ✓ · D. France
13. In which year was the American Declaration of Independence signed?
    A. 1776 ✓ · B. 1865 · C. 1789 · D. 1812
14. In which year did the French Revolution begin?
    A. 1789 ✓ · B. 1848 · C. 1689 · D. 1914
15. Who received the first patent for the telephone, in 1876?
    A. Guglielmo Marconi · B. Alexander Graham Bell ✓ · C. Thomas Edison · D. Nikola Tesla

The 20th century

16. In which year did the First World War begin?
    A. 1914 ✓ · B. 1918 · C. 1939 · D. 1905
17. In which year did the Second World War end?
    A. 1950 · B. 1939 · C. 1945 ✓ · D. 1942
18. In which year was the United Nations founded?
    A. 1950 · B. 1960 · C. 1919 · D. 1945 ✓
19. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?
    A. Neil Armstrong ✓ · B. John Glenn · C. Buzz Aldrin · D. Yuri Gagarin
20. In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?
    A. 1979 · B. 1991 · C. 1961 · D. 1989 ✓

Some wrong options are famous names in the wrong place. Julius Caesar in question 4 was never emperor; Akbar in question 6 is the best-known Mughal but not the founder; and Yuri Gagarin in question 19 was the first person in space, not on the Moon. Quizoma's results show the accuracy of every question, so you will see which ones caught people out.

Students can use the same set to revise on their own: import it, switch on Show Score and Retake, and it becomes a practice test they can take until every answer sticks.

How to use this template

1. Download the file: quizoma-template-world-history-quiz.csv.
2. Open Quizoma Studio in your browser (or the Android app) and choose Import from file.
3. Pick the .csv. Quizoma shows every question for review before anything is saved, so you can fix a wording, drop a question or add your own.
4. Save, then share the 6-character quiz code or QR with your class. Participants answer at quizoma.com/take in any browser.

Timing and points are set on the quiz when you import, not in the file. If you would rather not import at all, you can type the questions into the online quiz maker directly.

What is in the file

One row per question: the question, then the options, then a final correct column holding the number of the right option. Where more than one option is right, the numbers are joined with a |. The first lines look like this:

question,option1,option2,option3,option4,correct
In which country are the Pyramids of Giza?,Mexico,Greece,Egypt,Iraq,3
Who founded the Mughal Empire in 1526?,Humayun,Aurangzeb,Babur,Akbar,3

Open it in any spreadsheet to edit, and save it as CSV again before importing — an .xlsx file is not read. The same format is described on the templates page.