European History Trivia: Think You Know the Past?
1.
What city-state did Athens and its allies fight during the Peloponnesian War in 431-404 BC?
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Answer:
Sparta
2.
Who was King of Macedonia and conqueror of the Persian Empire?
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Answer:
Alexander The Great
3.
Who was the founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD?
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Answer:
Augustus
4.
Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar was originally called by what name?
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Answer:
Octavian
5.
Who was murdered in the Ides of March in 44 BC by a group of senators led by Brutus and Cassius?
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Answer:
Julius Caesar
6.
Together with Octavian and Mark Antony, who formed the Second Triumvirate?
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Answer:
Lepidus
7.
What Carthaginian general was considered the greatest enemy of the Roman Republic?
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Answer:
Hannibal
8.
The Edict of Milan, a letter accepting Christianity in the Roman empire, was signed by which emperors?
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Answer:
Constantine And Licinius
9.
Who was Augustus' son-in-law and the second Roman Emperor who ruled from 14 AD to 37 AD?
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Answer:
Tiberius
10.
What was the capital city of the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire?
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Answer:
Constantinople
11.
Who was the first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity?
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Answer:
Constantine I
12.
Who was the ruler of the Huns from 434-453 and was one of the most feared enemies of the Roman Empire?
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Answer:
Attila
13.
What Christian symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I as part of a military standard?
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Answer:
Chi Rho
14.
What refers to the long period of relative peace experienced by the Roman Empire from 27 BC until 180 AD?
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Answer:
Pax Romana
15.
Who was the King of the Visigoths from 395-410 and is most famous for his sack of Rome in 410?
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Answer:
Alaric I
16.
Who was the last of the "Five Good Emperors"?
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Answer:
Marcus Aurelius
17.
Who was the first emperor "born to the purple", that is, born during his father's reign?
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Answer:
Commodus
18.
Which emperor ended the period known as the "Crisis of the Third Century"?
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Answer:
Diocletian
19.
What was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman empire?
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Answer:
Diocletianic Persecution
20.
Called the "Father of Europe", who united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire?
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Answer:
Charlemagne
21.
What refers to a system of land ownership and duties dominant in Europe during the Middle Ages?
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Answer:
Feudalism
22.
What person is granted land by a feudal lord and received protection in return for homage and allegiance?
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Answer:
Vassal
23.
Clovis I founded what dynasty of kings that ruled the Franks, a Germanic tribe, from 481 to 751?
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Answer:
Merovingian
24.
Who was the first king of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty and the father of Charlemagne?
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Answer:
Pepin The Short
25.
Which emperor made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire?
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Answer:
Theodosius I
26.
Who, in 476, became the first barbarian king of Italy?
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Answer:
Odoacer
27.
What refers to the codification of Roman law ordered by Justinian I early in the 6th century AD?
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Answer:
Codex Justinianus
28.
Who was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler?
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Answer:
Clovis I
29.
What was the form of Christianity first adopted by Goths, Vandals and Alans?
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Answer:
Arianism
30.
Who were the dominant people living in England from the mid-5th century AD to the Norman conquest in 1066?
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Answer:
Anglo-Saxons
31.
What was a charter of liberties given in England by King John in 1215 rather than face civil war?
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Answer:
Magna Carta
32.
What was the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe?
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Answer:
Investiture Controversy
33.
What were Christian military and religious expeditions launched both against Islam and even other Christians?
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Answer:
Crusades
34.
Who was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087?
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Answer:
William The Conqueror
35.
Which emperor started the Byzantine Iconoclasm to end the use of religious images or icons?
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Answer:
Leo III
36.
A devout Catholic, who is the only canonized king of France?
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Answer:
Louis IX
37.
Which pope initiated the First Crusade in 1905 to free Jerusalem from the Muslims?
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Answer:
Pope Urban II
38.
Who was the pope at the beginning of the Investiture Controversy in the 11th century?
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Answer:
Gregory VII
39.
Which emperor was Pope Gregory VII's opponent in the Investiture Controversy?
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Answer:
Henry IV
40.
What was a cultural and intellectual movement in Europe from the 14th to the 17th century?
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Answer:
Renaissance
41.
What is the literal translation of the French word "renaissance" into English?
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Answer:
Rebirth
42.
What was the philosophical backbone of the Renaissance?
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Answer:
Humanism
43.
Where did the Renaissance begin before later spreading to the rest of Europe?
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Answer:
Italy
44.
What 1513 book by Niccolo Machiavelli argues that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved?
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Answer:
The Prince
45.
Who, along with Leonardo da Vinci, is often called a "Renaissance man"?
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Answer:
Michaelangelo
46.
The term "Majesty" was first assumed by which Holy Roman Emperor?
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Answer:
Charles V
47.
Who was known as "Il Magnifico" and perhaps best known as a patron of the arts during the Renaissance?
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Answer:
Lorenzo de' Medici
48.
What pope was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi Conspiracy?
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Answer:
Sixtus IV
49.
Who wrote "The Decameron", a series of 100 tales set in Florence during the Black Death in 1348?
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Answer:
Giovanni Boccaccio
50.
What was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe emphasizing reason and individualism?
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Answer:
Age Of Enlightenment
51.
What is the belief that, by using the power of reason, humans could arrive at truth and improve human life?
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Answer:
Rationalism
52.
What movement near the end of the Enlightenment placed emphasis on emotions and instincts rather than reason?
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Answer:
Romanticism
53.
What were gathering places for wealthy, intellectually minded elites prior to and during the Enlightenment?
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Answer:
Salons
54.
Who was the primary satirist of the Enlightenment, criticizing religion and leading philosophies of the time?
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Answer:
Voltaire
55.
Whose "Critique of Pure Reason" aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience?
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Answer:
Immanuel Kant
56.
What horribly destructive war was the most apparent cause of the Enlightenment?
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Answer:
Thirty Years' War
57.
Whose 1651 treatise "Leviathan" effectively kicked off the English Enlightenment?
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Answer:
Thomas Hobbes
58.
Who was an English philosopher and physician known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism"?
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Answer:
John Locke
59.
Who was the primary editor of the "Encyclopedie", which helped spread the Enlightenment throughout Europe?
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Answer:
Denis Diderot
60.
What epidemic spread across almost all of Europe in the years 1346-53?
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Answer:
The Black Death
61.
Who was the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer that formulated the heliocentric theory?
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Answer:
Nicolaus Copernicus
62.
Founded in 1660, what is a society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society still in existence?
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Answer:
The Royal Society Of London
63.
Whose 1687 book "Principia" formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation?
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Answer:
Isaac Newton
64.
Who published his three laws about planetary motion in the early 1600s?
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Answer:
Johannes Kepler
65.
Who proposed that the universe is infinitely large and that the Earth is by no means at the center of it?
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Answer:
Giordano Bruno
66.
What section of the Catholic Church warned Galileo to abandon his theories and committed him to house arrest?
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Answer:
Inquisition
67.
Who, in 1594, invented the mathematical tool of logarithms?
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Answer:
John Napier
68.
Who was an Italian physicist and mathematician best known for his invention of the barometer in 1643?
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Answer:
Evangelista Torricelli
69.
Who was the French king from 1774 to 1792 who was deposed during the French Revolution and executed in 1793?
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Answer:
Louis XVI
70.
What was a group of notables invited by the King of France to consult on matters of state?
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Answer:
Assembly Of Notables
71.
What was the name given to the Third Estate after it separated from the French Estates-General in 1789?
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Answer:
National Assembly
72.
What was an oath sworn by members of France's Third Estate who had just formed the National Assembly?
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Answer:
Tennis Court Oath
73.
What was a ten-month period of oppression and execution from late 1793 to mid-1794 in the French Revolution?
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Answer:
Reign Of Terror
74.
What French army general's accession marked the end of the French Revolution?
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Answer:
Napoleon Bonaparte
75.
Who was the wife of King Louis XVI and the primary symbol of the French royalty's extravagance and excess?
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Answer:
Marie Antoinette
76.
What ancient assembly did Louis XVI decide in 1789 to reconvene to deal with France's financial crisis?
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Answer:
The Estates-General
77.
What general panic occurred between 17 July and 3 August 1789 at the start of the French Revolution?
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Answer:
Great Fear
78.
The French Constitution of 1791 established what type of government?
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Answer:
Constitutional Monarchy
79.
What radical political club during the French Revolution executed their opponents in the Reign of Terror?
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Answer:
Jacobin Club
80.
What government of France during the French Revolution was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799?
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Answer:
Directory
81.
What was a battle fought in 1815 in Belgium in which Napoleon I met his final defeat?
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Answer:
Waterloo
82.
What was Napoleon's system of laws, particularly the civil code, which he first announced in 1804?
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Answer:
Napoleonic Code
83.
Who was the first wife of Napoleon I, and thus the first Empress of the French?
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Answer:
Josephine de Beauharnais
84.
What conference of ambassadors reorganized Europe after the Napoleonic Wars?
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Answer:
Congress Of Vienna
85.
The Continental System was Napoleon's plan to stop all shipping of what country's goods into Europe?
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Answer:
Britain
86.
Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 on what island?
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Answer:
Corsica
87.
What 1813 battle, also called the "Battle of Nations", ultimately resulted in Napoleon's exile to Elba?
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Answer:
Leipzig
88.
Which country was not a member of the four-nation alliance that battled Napoleon's army at Leipzig in 1813?
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Answer:
Hungary
89.
First passed in 1815, the Corn Laws put high tariffs on what good coming into England?
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Answer:
Grain
90.
Who wrote the 1818 novel "Frankenstein", a classic allegory of the flaws of Reason and Science?
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Answer:
Mary Shelley
91.
What was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820?
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Answer:
Cato Street Conspiracy
92.
What German economist and philosopher, along with Friedrich Engels, wrote "The Communist Manifesto"?
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Answer:
Karl Marx
93.
The Industrial Revolution began in what country in the middle of the 18th century?
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Answer:
Britain
94.
In the 19th century concept of class struggle, what class were those who owned the means of production?
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Answer:
Bourgeoisie
95.
Who founded Young Italy, a secret society formed to promote Italian unification, in 1832?
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Answer:
Giuseppe Mazzini
96.
What was the term German Romantics used to refer to a unique "spirit" possessed collectively by each nation?
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Answer:
Volksgeist
97.
The French Revolution of 1830 that saw the overthrow of King Charles X is also known by what name?
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Answer:
July Revolution
98.
Who published "On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection" in 1859?
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Answer:
Charles Darwin
99.
Who engineered a series of wars in the 1860s that unified the German states into a powerful German Empire?
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Answer:
Otto von Bismarck
100.
Who published "Das Kapital", describing how capitalism works and the problems this creates, in 1867?
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Answer:
Karl Marx
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