World History MCQs

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The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the tripartite aggression in the Arab world and Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the canal. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations, led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser. This war resulted in:- Anglo-French withdrawal following international pressure (December 1956), the Israeli occupation of Sinai (until March 1957), UNEF deployment in Sinai, Straits of Tiran re-opened to Israeli shipping, Resignation of Anthony Eden as British Prime Minister, end of Britain’s role as a superpower  and
Guy Mollet’s position as French Prime Minister heavily damaged.

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In its early period, Estonia was under the colonial subjugation of Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles and Russians. In 19th and early 20th centuries, Estonia witnessed a movement promoting and propagating “Estonian National Awakening” in which Estonians started acknowledging themselves as a nation deserving the right to govern themselves. This lead to the Estonian War of Independence from 1918 to 1920 which lead to the Estonian victory and the signing of the Tartu Peace Treaty, finally proclaiming the independence of Estonia from Russia. After independence, initially, Estonia followed a democratic political system which got culminated into an authoritarian rule post-Great Depression period from 1934 to 1940. This period was known as the Era of Silence. During World War II from 1939 to 1945, Estonia was under German and Soviet Union occupation, which finally ended with Soviet Union subjugation of Estonia through a puppet government, so as to continue the de jure status of Estonia. Annoyed with the subjugation of Soviet Rule, Estonians started “Singing Revolution” from 1987 to 1991 seeking the restoration of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Soviet Rule. This lead to the formal restoration of independence of Estonia from the Soviet Union in 1991.

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“Storming of the Bastille” event was the major turning point of the French Revolution, which happened on 14 July 1789 in Paris, the capital city of France. Bastille was a medieval armory, fortress, and political prison which represented royal authority and a symbol of the French monarchy’s abuse of power. Revolutionaries saw the fall of the Bastille as a flashing point of the French Revolution. France celebrates every year on 14 July as the Bastille Day, which is their national day. The French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of Bastille (Bastille Day) on 14 July 1789.

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The period of Nazi Germany, also known as the Third Reich, began with the rise of the Nazi Party to power in 1933 and ended with the defeat of Germany in 1945. The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power through a combination of political maneuvering, propaganda, and repression. Once in power, the Nazis implemented their vision of a totalitarian state based on their ideology of National Socialism, which combined elements of racism, militarism, and anti-Semitism.

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France and Belgium were the countries that participated in the military attack “Occupation of the Ruhr”. The Occupation of the Ruhr happened as part of the Aftermath of World War I and political violence in Germany (1918–33), was a period of military occupation of the Ruhr region of Germany by France and Belgium between 11 January 1923 and 25 August 1925. France and Belgium occupied the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley in response to Germany defaulting on reparation payments dictated by the victorious powers after World War I in the Treaty of Versailles. Occupation of the Ruhr worsened the economic crisis in Germany, and German civilians engaged in acts of passive resistance and civil disobedience, during which 130 were killed. France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressure, accepted the Dawes Plan to restructure Germany’s payment of war reparations in 1924 and withdrew their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925. The Occupation of the Ruhr contributed to German re-armament and the growth of radical right-wing movements in Germany.

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The Viannos massacres were a mass extermination campaign launched by Nazi forces against the civilian residents of around 20 villages located in the areas of east Viannos and west Ierapetra provinces on the Greek island of Crete during World War II.

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Hungary’s variant of communism policy followed was “Goulash Communism”. Goulash Communism, also commonly called Kadarism or the Hungarian Thaw, refers to the variety of communism in Hungary following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Janos Kadar and the Hungarian People’s Republic imposed policies with the goal to create high-quality living standards for the people of Hungary coupled with economic reforms. These reforms fostered a sense of well-being and relative cultural freedom in Hungary with the reputation of being “the happiest barracks” of the Eastern Bloc during the 1960s to the 1970s. With elements of regulated market economics as well as an improved human rights record, it represented a quiet reform and deviation from the Stalinist principles applied to Hungary in the previous decade.

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Hungary was occupied by Nazi German forces during World War II through “Operation Margarethe, 1944”. Operation Margarethe was the occupation of Hungary by Nazi German forces during World War II, as it was ordered by Hitler on 12 March 1944. A plan for the occupation of Romania was devised under the name Operation Margarethe II but was never carried out.

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Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev are the participants of the “Reykjavik Summit, 1986”. The Reykjavik Summit was a summit meeting between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Reykjavik, Iceland, on 11–12 October 1986. The talks collapsed at the last minute, but the progress that had been achieved eventually resulted in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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Indonesia invaded East Timor through “Operation Lotus”. The Indonesian invasion of East Timor, also known as Operation Lotus, began on 7 December 1975 when the Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-communism to overthrow the Fretilin regime that had emerged in 1974. The overthrow of the popular and briefly Fretilin-led government sparked a violent quarter-century occupation.