This history trivia game is the history edition of Rarest, where the rarest right answer wins. Prompts ask for US presidents, vice presidents and first ladies, British monarchs, Roman emperors, popes, Greek gods, famous battles and more. Recent presidents such as Obama and Biden are where everyone starts; William Henry Harrison, Chester A. Arthur or the Roman emperor Gordian II is where the points are.
Play it right here: the game above locks every round to history. You can play the daily round (seven prompts, the same for everyone that day) or switch to Unlimited for as many rounds as you like. For a mix of all eight categories, play Rarest, the rarest answer game on the home page.
How the history trivia game works
- You get seven prompts, each starting with "Name a…" or "Name the…", and 25 seconds per prompt (or no clock at all with No timer).
- Type any correct answer and press Enter. A wrong guess costs one second and you can try again.
- Each correct answer lands in one of six tiers, from Flicker (5 points) to Inferno (100 points). Once per round, Thermal ×2 doubles one prompt.
- After each prompt you see where your answer ranks, the best-known answers and a few of the rarest.
All 40 prompts in the history trivia game
These are the prompts the history edition draws from, with how many correct answers each one accepts:
- Name a President of the United States (45 answers)
- Name a Vice President of the United States (50 answers)
- Name a First Lady of the United States (56 answers)
- Name a U.S. Secretary of State (70 answers)
- Name a signer of the Declaration of Independence (56 answers)
- Name a signer of the U.S. Constitution (40 answers)
- Name a U.S. Supreme Court justice (115 answers)
- Name a Governor of California (39 answers)
- Name a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (58 answers)
- Name an English or British monarch (59 answers)
- Name a monarch of Scotland (50 answers)
- Name a king or emperor of France (120 answers)
- Name a Roman emperor (100 answers)
- Name a Byzantine emperor (100 answers)
- Name a Holy Roman Emperor (43 answers)
- Name a Russian tsar or emperor (27 answers)
- Name an Ottoman sultan (38 answers)
- Name an ancient Egyptian pharaoh (150 answers)
- Name a pope (267 answers)
- Name an emperor of Japan (110 answers)
- Name an emperor of China (150 answers)
- Name an ancient Greek philosopher (150 answers)
- Name an explorer born before 1850 (150 answers)
- Name a person who won the Nobel Peace Prize (112 answers)
- Name a battle of the American Civil War (150 answers)
- Name a battle of the American Revolutionary War (170 answers)
- Name a battle of the Napoleonic Wars (150 answers)
- Name a battle of the Hundred Years' War (93 answers)
- Name a castle in the United Kingdom (150 answers)
- Name a god or goddess of Greek mythology (320 answers)
- Name an ancient Egyptian god or goddess (120 answers)
- Name a Norse god or goddess (80 answers)
- Name a god or goddess of Roman mythology (139 answers)
- Name a Prime Minister of Japan (68 answers)
- Name a Prime Minister of Australia (31 answers)
- Name a President of France (32 answers)
- Name a pyramid in Egypt (63 answers)
- Name a Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (57 answers)
- Name a château or castle in France (62 answers)
- Name a Prime Minister of New Zealand (43 answers)
Common answers vs rare answers
Here is what separates a low score from a high one in the rarest answers for a few of the prompts. The left column is what most players type; the right column shows answers from the rarest tier for that prompt.
| Prompt | What most people say | Rare answers |
|---|---|---|
| Name a President of the United States | Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush | William Henry Harrison, James Buchanan, Martin Van Buren (Roar) |
| Name a Vice President of the United States | Joe Biden, George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon | Richard Mentor Johnson, Thomas R. Marshall, Schuyler Colfax (Roar) |
| Name a First Lady of the United States | Hillary Clinton, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Michelle Obama | Eliza McCardle Johnson, Abigail Fillmore, Margaret Taylor (Roar) |
| Name a U.S. Secretary of State | Thomas Jefferson, Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger | Walter Q. Gresham, Robert Smith, Abel P. Upshur (Inferno) |
| Name a signer of the Declaration of Independence | Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams | William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, Matthew Thornton (Roar) |
| Name a signer of the U.S. Constitution | George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton | Nathaniel Gorham, Thomas Fitzsimons, Nicholas Gilman (Roar) |
| Name a U.S. Supreme Court justice | William Howard Taft, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas | George Shiras Jr., Joseph Rucker Lamar, William Burnham Woods (Inferno) |
| Name a Governor of California | Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gavin Newsom | John McDougal, Friend Richardson, Henry T. Gage (Roar) |
| Name a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson | Frederick North, Lord North, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Henry Pelham (Roar) |
| Name an English or British monarch | Queen Elizabeth II, Charles III, Queen Victoria | Æthelstan, Stephen, William II (Roar) |
For the rarest answers to every prompt in all eight categories, see the rarest answers list.
Tips to win the history trivia game
- Look for short reigns and single terms. Rulers who did little are the rare tiers.
- Vice presidents and first ladies are lists most players barely know beyond the last few decades.
- Popes and Roman emperors run to hundreds; the ones in between the famous names score highest.
- Small typos are accepted, so a hard-to-spell pharaoh or sultan still counts.
More categories
Rarest has eight categories. Each one has its own page and its own locked game:
- Geography trivia
- Animals trivia
- Food & Drink trivia
- Sports trivia
- Movies & TV trivia
- Music trivia
- Science trivia
Answer lists are built from Wikidata, and rarity comes from public Wikipedia statistics; read more on the About page.