Real or Fake: Historical Events Quiz
History gets strange fast. Decide which wild-sounding stories actually happened and which ones belong in fiction, then see how sharp your historical instincts really are.
About this quiz
Some true events from history sound so absurd they feel made up, while some fake stories sound oddly believable. This quiz challenges your instincts with bizarre claims about emperors, wars, royalty, disasters, and historical mix-ups that sit right on the edge of credibility.
As you work through each scenario, you will decide whether it is real or fake and see how well you can separate fact from fiction. By the end, you will have a score to compare, a few surprising facts to remember, and a better sense of how strange real history can be.
Possible results
🎣 Easily Fooled
SCORE RANGE: 0 – 49
History really is stranger than fiction, and it showed tonight — plausible-sounding fakes and genuinely bizarre true stories both got past you. Even seasoned history buffs get tripped up by this one.
🧐 Quick challenge: Look up the strangest 'Real' answer from this quiz — it's worth it.
🧐 Skeptical Beginner
SCORE RANGE: 50 – 69
You correctly called more than half of these real-versus-fake claims. Your instinct for spotting a fabricated story is developing nicely.
💡 Did you know: Some of history's weirdest true stories, like the Great Emu War, sound far more made-up than the actual fakes in this quiz.
🔎 Sharp Fact-Checker
SCORE RANGE: 70 – 89
You correctly separated fact from fiction on nearly every claim, catching the fabricated details that would fool most people. Your instinct for real history is strong.
🏆 So close: Only a claim or two managed to slip past your radar.
🏅 History Myth-Buster
SCORE RANGE: 90 – 100
You correctly called nearly every real-versus-fake claim, seeing through the fabricated stories and confirming the truly bizarre real ones. That's a rare, well-calibrated sense of history.
🏅 Share your result: Send this quiz to the friend who always falls for fake history facts.
Quiz questions
In 2010, a rural Tennessee fire department reportedly watched a family's house burn down without intervening because the homeowner hadn't paid the $75 annual fire protection fee.
During World War II, the U.S. military ran a real research project training pigeons to guide missiles by pecking at a target displayed on a screen in the nose cone.
In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte organized a celebratory rabbit hunt, and the rabbits swarmed him so aggressively that he had to retreat to his carriage.
According to ancient Roman historians, Emperor Caligula planned to appoint his favorite horse, Incitatus, as a consul, Rome's highest political office.
In 1932, the Australian military deployed soldiers armed with machine guns to cull a huge population of emus destroying crops — and the emus largely won.
In 1963, the Vatican reportedly banned cardinals from wearing the color purple for a full year after a printing mistake in official robe patterns caused public embarrassment.
During the California Gold Rush, a large shipment of gold coins was mistakenly used as ship ballast and dumped into San Francisco Bay, where it remains undiscovered today.
In the 1800s, the British government briefly required citizens to purchase an official license to carry an umbrella in London.
In 1858, Queen Victoria signed a royal decree officially making left-handedness illegal for schoolchildren across the United Kingdom.
The first modern Olympic Games in 1896 included an official event called 'long-distance rock throwing,' which was discontinued after several spectator injuries.
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