History World: past questions
2026-10-07
- Born in 1900, this writer and aviator wrote The Little Prince. He disappeared on a flight in 1944.
- Born in 1934, this pilot became the first human in space, orbiting the earth once. He was celebrated as a hero after his historic flight.
- This royal residence stands in gardens of the capital. It is a historic house museum and an independent museum.
- Founded in 1348 by Charles IV, this Gothic castle was built to guard the crown jewels. It rises above a wooded valley.
- This treaty was signed in 1975 by Mariano Rumor and Miloš Minić. It settled a border on the Adriatic.
2026-10-06
- Born in 1845, this physicist discovered the X-ray. He won the first Nobel Prize in Physics.
- This ancient city was the first capital of a united kingdom of the pharaohs. Its ruins are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- This site has more than 100 ruined Hindu monuments of the Champa culture. It is a World Heritage Site.
- In 1943, an offensive recaptured a major city after two years of occupation. Three armies converged on it from different directions.
- Born in 1852, this chemist was the first to isolate a highly reactive and dangerous gaseous element in its pure form, an achievement that had eluded and injured many earlier researchers. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and also developed a high-temperature electric furnace used to synthesise artificial diamonds.
2026-10-05
- This ancient town on a mountainside was home to the most famous oracle of the ancient world. The ancients considered it the navel of the world.
- Between 1910 and 1920 an armed struggle swept this country, with leaders such as Emiliano Zapata and Francisco I. Madero. It was both a revolution and a civil war.
- In 1859, a bloody battle of a war of independence inspired the founding of a famous humanitarian movement. It was fought south of a large lake.
- Founded around 1353 BC, this ancient city of the pharaohs was built by a ruler who worshipped a single sun god. It was abandoned soon after his death.
- In 1429, a fast cavalry pursuit annihilated a retreating army trying to reach safety, a rare open-field disaster for a side that had dominated earlier battles of the long war. A young figure who had just lifted a famous siege played a key role in the victory.
2026-10-04
- Completed in 80 AD under Emperor Titus, a vast stone amphitheatre could hold around 50,000 spectators for gladiator contests. Many centuries later, in 1861, most of the peninsula's states were united into a single kingdom.
- In 1930, a lawyer-turned-activist led a march of almost 400 km to the sea to make salt in defiance of a colonial salt tax. His campaigns of non-violent resistance helped the country win independence in 1947.
- In 1914, the opening engagement of an invasion was fought at a ring of forts around a city. It was part of the Western Front.
- In 1346, during the Hundred Years' War, longbowmen of the Kingdom of England defeated a much larger army. The blind King of Bohemia died in the fighting.
- Born in 1854, this physician pioneered chemotherapy and found the first cure for a sexually transmitted disease. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
2026-10-03
- Born in 1868, the last emperor of a vast empire also held the titles King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He and his family were killed in 1918.
- In 1402 the Timurid Empire defeated the Ottoman Sultanate and captured its sultan. The battle was fought near a future capital.
- Founded around 706 BC, this planned capital was built from scratch by a king and abandoned soon after his death. Colossal winged bull statues guarded its gates.
- In 1556, a young ruler's forces held on to a throne despite being badly outnumbered. It secured a new dynasty over a subcontinent.
- In 1944, a huge encirclement trapped two German army corps in a pocket during a winter offensive. Many of the trapped troops died attempting a desperate breakout.
2026-10-02
- Born in 1834, this chemist arranged the elements in the periodic table. He left gaps for elements not yet discovered.
- Born in 1815, this mathematician wrote what is seen as the first computer program. She was the daughter of a famous poet.
- In 1942, troops mainly from Canada landed on a coast held by the enemy. The raid failed with heavy losses.
- This ancient city is named in an early flood narrative as the home of the sole survivor chosen to preserve life aboard a great vessel. Clay tablets recovered from its ruins record some of the oldest known literary texts in human history.
- Born in 1803, this mathematician and physicist explained why the pitch of a sound changes as its source moves. The effect he described is put to use in weather radar and medical scanning.
2026-10-01
- This ancient city of the Sumerians was a great religious centre. Thousands of clay tablets were found here.
- These huge geoglyphs were scratched into a desert floor around 200 BC. They show animals best seen from the air.
- Born in 476, this astronomer taught that the earth rotates. He wrote the Āryabhaṭīya.
- Dating back to around 900, this vast castle complex mixes Romanesque architecture, Gothic architecture and Renaissance architecture. It is one of the largest castle complexes in the world.
- Born in 1929, this engineer developed a crucial crystal growth technique that finally allowed high-quality blue semiconductor material to be produced reliably after decades of failed attempts by researchers worldwide. His breakthrough was essential to creating the modern white light-emitting diode, work that won him the Nobel Prize in Physics.
2026-09-30
- In 1985 a treaty was signed in a small village in this country, leading to a zone without internal border checks. It was named after the village where it was signed.
- This archaeological site was the capital of the Hittite empire. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- This huge chariot racing stadium could hold a quarter of a million spectators. It was founded around 550 BC.
- This desert necropolis holds the tombs of royal wives and children rather than kings. Its most famous tomb is covered in brilliantly preserved wall paintings protected for millennia by the dry climate.
- This researcher, born in 1927, spent a career pursuing scientific questions. Their work later earned them a Nobel Prize.
2026-09-29
- This town and monastery complex was a Christian pilgrimage center in Late Antiquity. It is a World Heritage Site.
- Born in 1749, this writer, artist and natural scientist wrote Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther. He also served as a politician at a ducal court.
- In 1940, during World War II, trapped troops of the United Kingdom were evacuated from beaches by a fleet of small boats. It was part of a larger lost campaign.
- Born in 1888, this physicist discovered a new type of secondary radiation, known as Raman scattering. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Bharat Ratna.
- In 1707, an allied army won a lopsided victory that secured a disputed throne for one claimant over a great swath of the country. The defeated side's losses were catastrophic compared to the victors' relatively light casualties.
2026-09-28
- On 14 July 1789, an angry crowd stormed a royal fortress-prison called the Bastille, sparking a revolution that ended the monarchy. King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in 1793.
- On 4 July 1776, thirteen colonies declared their independence from Britain in a document drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson. Less than two centuries later, in 1969, this nation landed the first humans on the Moon.
- In 1799, soldiers of Napoleon's expedition found a stone slab carrying the same decree in three scripts near a Nile Delta town. It allowed Jean-François Champollion to decipher hieroglyphs in 1822.
- An 82-kilometre canal opened here in 1914, sparing ships the long and dangerous voyage around Cape Horn. Control of the canal was handed from the United States to this country at the end of 1999.
- Around 2500 BC, one of the world's earliest planned cities – with grid streets, covered drains and a great public bath – flourished on the banks of the Indus. It was one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, and its modern name means 'Mound of the Dead'.