The History Bee

Augustin Coppolani (L, Middle School) and Giorgio Grego (R, Junior Varsity) won the International History Bee European Championship titles in 2025.

The International History Bee is a buzzer-based history quiz competition for individual students. The following page provides a comprehensive account of how the Bee works. Please note that these same rules are also used for the International Geography Bee and International Science Bee. If you have any further questions, please email david@iacompetitions.com

> Click here for sample questions and resources

Eligibility

For the 2025-2026 academic year, in order to compete in the Varsity Division of the History Bee, students must have been born in or before August 2009. To qualify for the Junior Varsity Division, students must be born between September 2009 and August 2011. To compete in the Middle School Division of the History Bee, students must have been born in September 2011 or more recently. At tournaments that offer an Elementary Division, the Middle School Division is then for students born in September 2011-August 2013, and the Elementary Division is for students born in September 2013 or more recently. Note that unlike in the History Bowl, it is not permitted for younger students to play in an older age division than the one for which they are eligible, provided it is being offered (i.e. Elementary-eligible students compete in the Middle School Division if a tournament does not have an Elementary Division running). That said, in rare circumstances, all younger students in a division can sometimes be considered eligible for older divisions at the sole discretion of IAC staff if it would result in a more coherent competition (e.g. if there is only 1 Varsity student and 7 Junior Varsity students competing in a tournament, the Junior Varsity students could be considered eligible for the Varsity title, so that the Varsity student has a reason to compete). This is never the case at the European Championships though.

There is no younger age limit – a brilliant and mature 8 year-old is welcome to compete.  Likewise, there is no limit on types of schools – local, international, public, private, religious, schools abroad following a home country curriculum, and homeschoolers are all welcome.
Students do not have to compete in the country their school is in; they can compete at up to four regional sites each year, including online, as long as the four sites use different sets of questions. The question sets are labeled Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Gold.

Tournament Format

At all History Bees, for all age divisions, there are three preliminary rounds of 30 questions each.  In each round, you’ll be in a room with 5-10 students with rooms most usually running with 5-8 players per round. Each round takes about 25-30 minutes to complete, including the finals.

Game Format

Students each have a buzzer and attempt to be the first student to ring in and answer correctly. Students may ring in at any point in the question – they are encouraged to interrupt the moderator to do so. After they ring in, they give their answer. If they are correct, they get a point. If incorrect, they cannot buzz again on the question. Three incorrect answers given will end the question immediately, at which point the moderator reveals the answer. Players will not normally lose a point for buzzing in incorrectly except if they are the third student to answer incorrectly before the end of the question, in which case, they do lose a point. It is therefore possible to accrue a negative score with multiple incorrect interruptions. If the question has been read to completion, three incorrect answers will still end the question, but no penalty will be assessed – this penalty only applies to a third, incorrect interruption.

Once a student has reached a cumulative score of 6 points, that student is done for that round. Students do however receive bonus points based on how early they reach 6 points. The following table summarizes the bonus structure:

Reaching 6 pts on or before question… Results in this many bonus pts… And thus this many total pts…
Six                                                                  Nine                                                    Fifteen
Eight                                                              Eight                                                   Fourteen
Ten                                                                 Seven                                                 Thirteen
Twelve                                                           Six                                                       Twelve
Fifteen                                                           Five                                                     Eleven
Eighteen                                                       Four                                                    Ten
Twenty-One                                                Three                                                   Nine
Twenty-Four                                               Two                                                      Eight
Twenty-Seven                                             One                                                     Seven
Thirty                                                           Zero                                                      Six

Students are grouped into different groups for each of the three rounds. After all three rounds, the scores from all rounds are added up, and the top students advance to the finals.

Final Round Structure

In the final round, the top students in each division compete against the other top students from their division. The structure of the finals varies from tournament to tournament based on the time available for its completion and how many students are competing. The number of students who will make the finals will be announced during the opening meeting of the History Bee.

Question Styles

Unlike the History Bowl, which has multiple question formats, the History Bee is made up entirely of “pyramidal” tossups (i.e. buzzer questions which start with more obscure information and move to more familiar information). Questions cover the history of the arts, sciences, religion, philosophy, languages, historical geography, recent history and the history of sports and entertainment in addition to the usual social, political, and military history. In the final rounds, the questions are, on average, slightly longer and more difficult.

Resources for Training

The Official Study Guide for both high school and middle school students is available here for download. This contains both a list of topics that can be referenced in our tournaments and some strategies for preparation. Please note that the study guide is meant to be a starting point for study and not meant to be all-encompassing – topics will be referenced in our tournaments that are not explicitly mentioned in the study guide.

Past questions used at our tournaments in Europe are usually your best resource for practicing. We use new questions each year, but the people, places, and events in history that are referenced in questions from one year to the next are usually quite similar.

Please also see NAQT’s (National Academic Quiz Tournaments) “You gotta know” pages and www.quizbowlpackets.com (though this has a heavy American emphasis and references all subjects) and our Resources Page from our main USA website. Please note that the questions you’ll find here have more American history content than the questions we use in Europe.