History word search
Thirteen words that turn up in every era are hiding in this 12x12 grid, and all eight directions are in play. Six more history boards print from this page, one each for the ancient world, the middle ages, the explorers, American history, the second world war and an easy one for children.
Curated by 
Esme Rook
·
Updated August 2026
Play it right here
Drag across the letters to select a word. Words hide across, down and diagonally, forwards and backwards. Works with mouse and touch.
What words are hidden in this history word search?
Thirteen: century, empire, dynasty, treaty, revolution, monarchy, artifact, timeline, ancient, museum, chronicle, heritage and parchment. They hide in all eight directions on a 12x12 grid, so read the diagonals and read backwards too. REVOLUTION is the ten letter anchor and the sensible first target; EMPIRE is the short one that hides longest.
History for the fun of it, not for the exam
These seven boards are built for people who enjoy the past, not for a syllabus: no unit objectives, no reading comprehension, nothing to hand in. The atom, the microscope and the telescope live on the science word search; Moses, the psalms and the manger on the bible word search. Not one of the eighty three words here appears on either of those, or on any other board on this site: the lists were machine checked against every deployed puzzle before this page shipped. If your table would rather have clues than hidden words, the geography crossword puzzle is next door.
Seven history boards to print, one for each corner of the past
The board on this page is the general one. Six more print from here, and each takes one slice of history and gives it a whole grid of its own: the ancient world, the middle ages, the explorers, the United States, the second world war and a gentle one for children. Every sheet is built from its own word list and carries its own solution page, so a museum queue, a long car journey or a rainy Sunday can each get a different sheet. Two word terms run together on the board, the way word searches have always set them: gold rush is GOLDRUSH, air raid is AIRRAID, code breaker is CODEBREAKER.
The 12x12 board on this page
The board printed exactly as it plays above: thirteen words that turn up in every era, from the six letter empire to the ten letter revolution, hidden across, down, diagonally and backwards.
Ancient history: pharaohs, columns and the arena
Twelve words from the first civilisations on a 13x13 board: the pharaoh and the papyrus, the hieroglyph and the obelisk, the sphinx, the acropolis, the colosseum and the aqueduct that kept a city drinking.
The middle ages: the tightest board here
Ten words squeezed onto the smallest eight direction grid on the page, 11x11: the knight and his squire, the crusade, the jousting, the moat and the drawbridge, the abbey, the monastery and the minstrel.
Explorers: the age of sail
A roomy 14x14 for the ships and the instruments that mapped the oceans: the caravel and the galleon, the astrolabe and the sextant, the latitude nobody could measure properly at sea, and the mutiny that came of it.
American history: colonies to railroad
Twelve words of United States history on a 13x13 board, walking from the colonies and the settlers through independence and the constitution out to the frontier, the gold rush, the railroad and the suffrage campaigns.
The second world war: the hard one, 15x15
The hardest sheet on this page: sixteen words in a 15x15 grid using all eight directions, from the ration book and the blackout to the convoy, the bunker, the code breaker, the armistice and the memorial that came after.
Easy history: the gentle one, for children
Eight short words on a 10x10 grid, across and down only and never backwards, so a seven year old can finish a whole sheet unaided: king, queen, crown, throne, scroll, ruins, tomb and sword.
Print it or play it
Play the 12x12 right on this page or print the free PDF; the separate solution sheet marks all thirteen words on the same grid, so the puzzle can go round the table while the answers stay in your pocket. The playable board, the PDF and the solution all come from one generated puzzle, so they can never disagree. Every sheet prints clean in black and white, for the queue outside a museum, for a long journey, and for the evening when the documentary turns out to be three episodes long.
