World History Quiz
Twenty questions across twenty-five centuries, from antiquity to the 1990s.
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About this test
World history is usually taught as a list of dates, which is the surest way to forget it. It holds far better when organised around ruptures: the collapse of the Roman west, the consolidation of medieval empires, the Atlantic age of exploration, the revolutionary century, and the two world wars that redrew every map. Five hinges, and everything else arranges itself around them.
A verifiable detail that resets the scale: the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, divided the non-European world between Spain and Portugal along a meridian drawn in the Atlantic — before anyone involved knew what lay on either side of it. Brazil ended up Portuguese largely because that line happened to clip the eastern bulge of South America. Another useful anchor: the Berlin Wall stood for twenty-eight years, from 1961 to 1989, less than a single human generation.
The best way to improve is to build one timeline on a single sheet with no more than fifteen dates, then place every new fact onto it rather than learning it separately. An isolated date evaporates within a week; a date connected to two neighbours lasts for years.
This test is provided for entertainment purposes only. It is not a diagnosis or professional advice.