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About This Quiz
The United Kingdom is currently is made of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England, plus Gibraltar, the Falklands, and a few other places. Currently part of the European Union until its controversial exit next year, the UK is referred to as "British" due to being largely based on the island of Great Britain, but this technically refers only to the island containing Scotland, Wales, and England (it was named "great" as opposed to the province of Breton, or "little Britain", across the Channel).
While the Act of Union wasn't until the 1700's, which is when the United Kingdom formally became one entity, the history of the UK's component parts reach back 5,000 years and more beyond the building of Stonehenge. Its more "modern" history is generally deemed to start with the Norman invasion of 1066, though true experts will also study the Anglo-Saxon and Roman periods before that. As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the UK colonized a great deal of the world, creating the biggest empire in world history. It engaged in the slave trade for around 200 years, abolishing it in the 1830's and then putting ships to sea to end it: sadly, many fortunes were built on this labor while it lasted. The UK was later a key member of the Allies in World War One and Two during the 20th century, fighting alongside France, the Soviet Union, and the United States to battle Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. Victory in both wars resulted in the geopolitical ascendancy of the UK's ally, the USA.
We're focusing on the long history of the United Kingdom. Do you know enough to pass our test?ÂÂ
What year did the Normans invade?
1060
1054
1066
William had been promised the throne - he thought - by Edward the Confessor. He was very upset when King Harold decided to take it, and felt he had no choice but to invade and take it for himself.
1075
Who is the longest-reigning monarch (so far)?
Victoria
Elizabeth I
Anne
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch now. The Queen has been on the throne for 65 years.
Who is the second longest-reigning monarch?
Victoria
Queen Victoria reigned 63 years, presiding over Britain's ascent to become the greatest imperial power in the history of the world. She had an arranged, but ecstatically happy marriage to Albert.
Anne
Elizabeth I
Mary
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What's important about Dido Belle Lindsay?
She was the first biracial British aristocrat
Dido Belle Lindsay is thought to have informed Lord Mansfield's decision in the case of the Zong slave ship, whose crew murdered sick slaves so they could claim insurance on the dead. Mansfield's biracial niece had been raised in his home after the death of her father, Lord Lindsay.
She was a writer
She was a poet
She was a soldier
Who fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field?
Henry Tudor and the Earl of Warick
Duke of Buckingham and Lord Rochford
Richard of York and the Duke of Norfolk
Henry Tudor and Richard of York
Richard III lost this famous battle, and his head, to the first king of the Tudor dynasty. Henry VII was crowned on the battlefield with a bloody crown, ushering in five Tudor monarchs. Under the Tudors, England went from being just a reasonably prosperous country to being on the cusp of becoming a great power.
Who lost the Battle of Britain?
Nazis
The Battle of Britain established British air supremacy during World War II, without which the Nazi invasion of Britain would have taken place. The Nazi plans for Britain were absolutely horrifying and are detailed in Hitler's Black Book. Anyone interested in what the end of the world might look like should read it.
Prussians
Napoleon
Celts
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Who were the two sides in the Wars of the Roses?
York and Lancaster
The Wars of the Roses heralded the end of the Plantagenet line and the rise of the Tudors. Everyone's claim to the throne was actually pretty decent, though the Tudors' went through the female line.
York and Norfolk
Northumberland and Suffolk
Mercia and Wales
Who won the English Civil War?
The Roundheads
The Roundheads were the colloquial name for the parliamentary forces, so called because unlike the Cavaliers - the aristocracy - they had short hair. They were led by Oliver Cromwell, who made himself Lord Protector. The monarchy was restored in 1660.
The Cavaliers
The King
The Parliament
When was the Act of Union that joined England and Scotland?
1705
1743
1707
The Act of Union made King James VI of Scotland, King James I of Scotland and England. There were plenty of uprisings which were eventually crushed in 1743 with the Battle of Culloden.
1799
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Who wrote Principia, widely regarded to be the most important mathematical text of all time?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton is always on the top ten greatest mathematicians of all time for his Theory of Gravity. Principia is one of his great works. There are two copies left including one in Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which has Newton's handwritten notes in it.
Robert Hooke
Charles Darwin
Charles Babbage
Who brought the printing press to Britain?
Johann Gutenberg
St. Andrew
Robert Large
William Caxton
William Caxton brought the printing press to Britain in the late Plantagenet period. Before that, literacy was limited mostly to the aristocracy (and not even all of them) and monks. The printing press paved the way for English displacing any remaining French left over from Norman times.
Which engineer built the Great Western Railway?
Robert Stephenson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Brunel is an architect of many of the finest works of Victorian engineering. Notable on the Great Western Railway is a tunnel where the light shines perfectly along its several miles of length only one day a year - a couple days off his birthday. No one knows if this is a mistake on his part and he intended it to be on the day itself, or if it is a happy coincidence.
Mo Ibrahim
Robert Trevethick
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Who discovered penicillin?
Alexander Fleming
Before penicillin, some of the most minor injuries and virtually all surgeries were considered a potential death trap. Fleming's experiment went wrong, resulting in a mold growing in a petri dish. Fleming noticed it had killed off some bacteria in the dish and decided to look further into its properties.
Alexander Graham Bell
Florence Nightingale
Doctor Penicillin
Who discovered the structure of DNA?
Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick
Franklin, Crick, and Watson discovered the structure of DNA, but as Franklin's work with X-ray crystallography gave her ovarian cancer, she did not live long enough to share the Nobel Prize the others received.
Maurice Smith and Jeffrey Franklin
John Crick and Jeff Franklin
James Crick and Frances Franklin
Who was the first female Prime Minister of Britain?
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher is considered a deeply polarizing figure, but one achievement no one can dispute is that thanks to her, a generation of British girls got to grow up with the idea that the Queen and the PM were women, and thus women in charge was a natural state of things. Thatcher is hated by former coal towns where she broke the unions - but Britain is now banning coal in favor of solar, wind, and other clean tech.
Nancy Astor
Theresa May
Harriet Harman
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What is the capital of Northern Ireland?
Dublin
Belfast
Ireland used to be entirely under British rule, but it was divided in largely religious lines and most of it became independent as the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland remains part of the UK and is its only land border with the EU.
Cork
Wicklow
What territory in Spain is part of Britain?
Catalonia
Andalucia
Gibraltar
The Rock of Gibraltar stands on the straits facing Africa. Some British troops undergoing a military exercise accidentally "invaded" Spain a few years ago by landing a few hundred yards inside the border. Fortunately, everyone thought it was rather funny.
Cyprus
Which British family founded the state of Pennsylvania?
Sylvanians
Penns
William Penn was an aristocratic Englishman who founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a place for Quakers, giving it the family motto of "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence".
Pennsyls
Smiths
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Which king came to an absolutely ghastly end in part due to his love affair with Piers Gaveston?
Edward II
The play The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England tells Edward's story. The king came to a terrible end involving a red-hot poker. He made his lover Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall. Gaveston is commemorated every year with a very riotous and naughty party in the woods near the University of Oxford.
Richard III
Richard II
Edward IV
In which town in England was William Shakespeare born?
Newcastle upon Tyne
Ashby de la Zouch
Chichester
Stratford upon Avon
Shakespeare was born in Stratford and was probably a teacher there for some time before moving to London and making his name as not just among the greatest writers who ever lived, but also a producer and even theater owner. The modern Globe in London stands near the site of his theater and is designed to be as similar as possible to it.
Which famous English poet wrote the Canterbury Tales?
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey at Poets' Corner. He also wrote The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. What is important about his work is that he made it normal to write great epics in English, instead of Latin, French, or other languages considered more poetic.
Thomas Hoccleve
Henry Scogan
Ralph Strode
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Who was Hereward the Wake?
A famous sailor
Inventor of the spinning jenny
A Saxon rebel
Hereward the Wake led the Anglo-Saxon resistance against the Norman invaders, based out of Isle of Ely in East Anglia. Sadly the Normans had the better of him, and he came to a bad end.
Inventor of the cotton gin
When William Wallace invaded the north of England, how far south did he get?
Sheffield
Trick question: he never crossed the border
Huddersfield
York
While Wallace managed to sack York, it is unlikely he would have made it further south as he really did not have the manpower to hold the land. He was defeated by Edward Longshanks and ended up hanged, drawn, and quartered.
What semi-precious stone, which is common in blue and yellow varieties, is mined in the Peak District?
Bluejohn
Bluejohn comes in blue and yellow, and is thought to be named for the French words "bleu et jean", meaning "blue and yellow". The Peak District in Derbyshire is very beautiful and so full of caves - some containing lakes, and many that you can visit - that it is said that if you struck the whole region with a celestial hammer, it would resound like a giant bell.
Sapphire
Peridot
Adventurine
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What did James Watts invent?
The piston
The coil
The internal combustion engine
The modern steam engine
James Watts invented the modern steam engine, which brought about the Industrial Revolution. There was a steam engine before that, but it wasn't up to par for driving trains etc. The watt, a measure of electrical power, is named for Watts.
When did the British Empire ban slavery?
1892
1865
1833
Britain banned slavery in 1833. Part of the Abolitionists' success came about due to regulating slave ships out of existence. They also undertook a major propaganda campaign where it became fashionable to say that your sugar was not slave-picked, and also used tricks like making pro-slavery Members of Parliament think they had won tickets to important horse races on the days of crucial votes, so they wouldn't be in Parliament to vote.
1807
What did Sir Tim Berners-Lee invent?
Invented hyptertext
Sir Tim invented the World Wide Web, which is how we access servers and thus is key to the internet existing. Sir Tim invented hypertext which enabled computers to talk to one another in an entirely new way.
Invented the internet
Invented the server
Founded CERN
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What literary genre was invented by English writer, Mary Shelley?
Science fiction
Mary Shelley is best known for Frankenstein, generally agreed to be the first true work of science fiction as we know it. She wrote it during the Year Without A Summer when she and several friends including Lord Byron could barely leave the house in Geneva due to terrible weather brought on by the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption.
Superheroes
Romance
Suspense thriller
When did Britain give women the right to vote?
1918
Votes for women were the obvious next step after women stepped into all the male jobs during World War One. Pioneering suffragettes such as the Pankhurst sisters led marches, demonstrations, write-ins, and sit-ins to get women their democratic recognition.
1920
1921
1915
What did Sarah Guppy design?
The Houses of Parliament
The Angel of the North
The Clifton Suspension Bridge
Guppy designed the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. The bridge still stands to this day as a marvel of Victorian engineering.
The Forth Rail Bridge
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Who is Ada Lovelace?
The mother of computing
Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace was a Victorian mathematician who worked on Charles Babbage's "computing machine". She was the first person to write an algorithm and to realize the machine could do more than just calculate things. She invented the concept of coding and is the first computer programmer.
The mother of flight
The mother of algebra
The mother of trigonometry
What sort of star did astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell discover?
Quasar
Supernova
Nova
Pulsar
Bell discovered the pulsar while studying for her thesis, discerning that it wasn't the same thing as the quasars they set out to analyze. At first, her supervisors thought the regular flickers simply must indicate intelligent life as they were so obviously in a rhythm. Bell showed that pulsars are neutron stars, which are rapidly spinning collapsed stars which did not have the mass to turn into a black hole.
What were the Cottingley Fairies?
A mysterious group of creatures like the Loch Ness Monster, but in the village of Cottingley
A photographic hoax that persuaded people fairies were real
The Cottingley Fairies were a hoax played by photographer cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths in the first decade of the 1900's. The cousins claimed to have seen fairies in Cottingley Beck, a nearby stream, and produced five photos to prove it. Conan Doyle was one of many who were fooled, as photography was not widespread enough yet for people to realize the images were faked.
A group of female singers from Edwardian times
The first genetically engineered organism
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Where did Sherlock Holmes live?
220 Baker Street
221B Baker Street
Sherlock Holmes wasn't actually a real person, but his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote him so well that many people believed it then. 221B Baker Street wasn't a real address, but the stories were so popular that nowadays it is a real place with a Sherlock Holmes museum. Just don't tell anyone there that it's not true!
200 Oxford Street
21A Wimpole Street
What stately home is the inspiration for Pemberly, Mr. Darcy's house in Jane Austen's novel "Pride & Prejudice"?
Belvoir Castle
Chatsworth
Jane Austen's 1797 novel "Pride and Prejudice" is one of the most successful of all time and has been adapted multiple times, most successfully by the BBC in 1995, starring a then young and very gorgeous Colin Firth.
Woburn Abbey
Howard Castle
You Got:
/35
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