{
  "pack": "originals-v1",
  "category": "history",
  "questions": [
    {
      "id": "history-001",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "In what year did Christopher Columbus first reach the Americas?",
      "options": ["1498", "1507", "1492", "1519"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas in October 1492.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-002",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Which English king agreed to the Magna Carta in 1215?",
      "options": ["King John", "Henry II", "Richard I", "Edward I"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "King John sealed the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, accepting limits on royal power.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-003",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Which civilization built the mountaintop city of Machu Picchu?",
      "options": ["Aztec", "Inca", "Maya", "Olmec"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "The Inca built Machu Picchu high in the Andes of Peru in the 1400s.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-004",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "In what year did the Berlin Wall fall?",
      "options": ["1985", "1979", "1991", "1989"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "Border crossings opened on November 9, 1989, and crowds began tearing the wall down.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-005",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Who received the first US patent for the telephone, in 1876?",
      "options": ["Thomas Edison", "Samuel Morse", "Alexander Graham Bell", "Nikola Tesla"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "Alexander Graham Bell was granted his telephone patent in March 1876.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-006",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Near which North Carolina town did the Wright brothers make their first powered flight in 1903?",
      "options": ["Kitty Hawk", "Raleigh", "Wilmington", "Asheville"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "The December 1903 flights took off from Kill Devil Hills, just south of Kitty Hawk.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-007",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Which ship carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic to North America in 1620?",
      "options": ["Santa María", "Mayflower", "Half Moon", "Endeavour"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "The Mayflower reached Cape Cod in November 1620 before the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-008",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "The ancient city of Carthage in North Africa was founded by which people?",
      "options": ["Romans", "Greeks", "Persians", "Phoenicians"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "Phoenician settlers from Tyre founded Carthage in what is now Tunisia.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-009",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Who won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and became King of England?",
      "options": ["Harold Godwinson", "Alfred the Great", "Richard the Lionheart", "William the Conqueror"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II and was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-010",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "The United States bought which territory from Russia in 1867?",
      "options": ["Alaska", "Hawaii", "Oregon", "Puerto Rico"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "Alaska cost $7.2 million, roughly two cents an acre.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-011",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Who became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, in 1932?",
      "options": ["Bessie Coleman", "Amelia Earhart", "Harriet Quimby", "Jacqueline Cochran"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "Amelia Earhart flew from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland in May 1932.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-012",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "TRUE_FALSE",
      "prompt": "The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris.",
      "options": ["True", "False"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "True: it served as the grand entrance to the 1889 Exposition Universelle.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-013",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "In 1922, Howard Carter found the nearly intact tomb of which Egyptian pharaoh?",
      "options": ["Ramesses II", "Khufu", "Tutankhamun", "Akhenaten"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings held thousands of treasures.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-014",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Johannes Gutenberg introduced which invention to Europe around 1450?",
      "options": ["Telescope", "Movable-type printing press", "Mechanical clock", "Magnetic compass"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "Gutenberg's press, famous for the Gutenberg Bible, made books far cheaper to produce.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-015",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "The 1783 Treaty of Paris brought which war to an end?",
      "options": ["Seven Years' War", "American Revolutionary War", "War of 1812", "Napoleonic Wars"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Britain recognized the independence of the United States.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-016",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "In what year did the RMS Titanic sink on its maiden voyage?",
      "options": ["1905", "1915", "1921", "1912"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "Titanic hit an iceberg late on April 14, 1912, and sank early the next morning.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-017",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Which founding American document begins with the words \"We the People\"?",
      "options": ["Declaration of Independence", "Bill of Rights", "US Constitution", "Articles of Confederation"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "The Preamble of the US Constitution opens with \"We the People of the United States.\"",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-018",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "The Rosetta Stone was the key to decoding which ancient writing system?",
      "options": ["Egyptian hieroglyphs", "Cuneiform", "Linear B", "Mayan glyphs"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "Its matching Greek text helped Jean-François Champollion decipher hieroglyphs in 1822.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-019",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Whose 1519 expedition was the first to sail around the world, though he died before it ended?",
      "options": ["Vasco da Gama", "Ferdinand Magellan", "Francis Drake", "James Cook"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521; Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the voyage.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-020",
      "difficulty": "STANDARD",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Which volcano buried the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD?",
      "options": ["Mount Etna", "Stromboli", "Mount Vesuvius", "Mount Hekla"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "The eruption of Vesuvius buried Pompeii under thick volcanic ash, preserving it for centuries.",
      "wildcard": true
    },
    {
      "id": "history-021",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Who was the first emperor of ancient Rome?",
      "options": ["Julius Caesar", "Nero", "Caligula", "Augustus"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "Julius Caesar was dictator, never emperor; his heir Augustus became the first emperor in 27 BC.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-022",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Thomas Edison was nicknamed \"The Wizard of\" which New Jersey community, home to his famous lab?",
      "options": ["Menlo Park", "Princeton", "Newark", "Hoboken"],
      "answer": 0,
      "explanation": "Edison's Menlo Park lab produced the phonograph and his practical incandescent light bulb.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-023",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "Who led the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis?",
      "options": ["Joseph Stalin", "Nikita Khrushchev", "Leonid Brezhnev", "Mikhail Gorbachev"],
      "answer": 1,
      "explanation": "Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba after a 13-day standoff.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-024",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "What was the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944?",
      "options": ["Operation Torch", "Operation Market Garden", "Operation Barbarossa", "Operation Overlord"],
      "answer": 3,
      "explanation": "Operation Overlord began with the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.",
      "wildcard": false
    },
    {
      "id": "history-025",
      "difficulty": "DIFFICULT",
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "prompt": "The United States made the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from which country?",
      "options": ["Spain", "Britain", "France", "Mexico"],
      "answer": 2,
      "explanation": "The US bought the territory from Napoleon's France, roughly doubling the nation's size.",
      "wildcard": false
    }
  ]
}