This quiz builds a timeline of world history. The events span more than 4,500 years, from the Great Pyramid of Giza to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The board starts with one event already on it. The quiz then gives you one event at a time.
You put each event in the timeline, before or after the events that are already there. A correct placement shows the year and keeps the event on the board. One wrong placement ends the run. You cannot move an event after you place it, so each choice is final.
The ends are easy. The hard part is the middle. Most people can put the Moon landing after Waterloo. Far fewer are sure if Magna Carta comes before or after the Black Death. The timeline also gets harder as it grows, because each new event has more gaps to choose from.
How to play
The timeline is sorted by year. The oldest event is at one end and the newest event is at the other end.
One event starts on the board. Its year is shown.
The quiz gives you one event at a time. Put it in the gap where you think it belongs.
A correct placement shows the year of the event. The event stays on the board and the quiz gives you the next event.
A wrong placement ends the run. The quiz then shows you the correct gap.
You cannot move an event after you place it.
Your score is the number of events on the board at the end. The maximum score is 25.
A perfect run places all 25 events with no mistake.
What counts in this quiz
25 events from world history, chosen so that they are spread across the whole timeline.
Years before the common era are shown as BC, for example "2560 BC". Years under 1000 are shown as "AD 79".
The events are far enough apart that the order is not in doubt. The smallest gap in the quiz is 13 years.
What's not included — and why
The oldest dates are estimates that historians still discuss. The quiz uses the figure most reference works give — about 2560 BC for the Great Pyramid, and about 1754 BC for the Code of Hammurabi.
Events that ran for many years are dated by the year they started or ended, whichever the card names. "The First World War begins" is 1914; "The Second World War ends" is 1945.
Good to know
The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest building in the world for about 3,800 years — longer than any other structure has held the record.
Tutankhamun was buried around 1323 BC. That is closer in time to the first Olympic Games than the Great Pyramid is to him.
The first powered flight in 1903 lasted 12 seconds. Sixty-six years later, people walked on the Moon.