World History MCQs

Notes:
The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history from 1814 to 1830 following the first fall of Napoleon in 1814 and his final defeat in the Hundred Days War in 1815, until the July Revolution of 1830. The brothers of the executed Louis XVI, namely Louis XVIII and Charles X, came to power and reigned in a highly conservative fashion. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France. They were nonetheless unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna, they were treated respectfully but had to give up nearly all the territorial gains made since 1789.

Notes:
The July revolution, also known as the French Revolution of 1830 or the Second French Revolution, happened from 26 July to 29 July 1830 in France. This led to the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would be overthrown in 1848. It marked the shift from one constitutional monarchy, under the restored House of Bourbon, to another, the July Monarchy; the transition of power from the House of Bourbon to its cadet branch, the House of Orléans; and the replacement of the principle of hereditary right by popular sovereignty. Supporters of the Bourbon would be called Legitimists, and supporters of Louis Philippe Orléanists.

Notes:
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France’s National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from and inspired by the French Revolution. The Declaration was drafted by the Abbe Sieyes and the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. Influenced by the doctrine of “natural right”, the rights of man are to be held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place.

Notes:
“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.

Notes:
The Massacre of Kondomari was an execution of male civilians from the village of Kondomari in Crete, Greece, by an ad hoc firing squad consisting of German paratroopers on 2 June 1941 during World War II. The shooting was the first of a series of reprisals in Crete. It was orchestrated by Generaloberst Kurt Student, in retaliation for the participation of Cretans in the Battle of Crete which had ended with the surrender of the island two days earlier. The massacre was photographed by Franz-Peter Weixler, a German army war propaganda correspondent, whose negatives were discovered 39 years later in the Federal German archives by a Greek journalist.

Notes:
The United States of America’s foreign intelligence service carried out the covert operation “1954 Guatemalan coup d’etat. The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’etat, code-named Operation PBSuccess, was a covert operation carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.

Notes:
Indonesia was the location of the event “Transition to the New Order”. Indonesia’s transition to the New Order in the mid-1960s, ousted the country’s first president, Sukarno, after 22 years in the position. One of the most tumultuous periods in the country’s modern history was the commencement of Suharto’s 31-year presidency.

Notes:
Indonesia’s ruling regime collapse was the “Fall of Suharto”. Suharto resigned as president of Indonesia on 21 May 1998 following the collapse of support for his three-decade-long presidency. The resignation followed severe economic and political crises over the previous six to twelve months.

Notes:
In his foreign policy, Hitler acquired quick successes. He pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan, ‘One people, One empire, and One leader’. He then went on to wrest German-speaking Sudentenland from Czechoslovakia, and gobbled up the entire country later under the Munich Pact. In all of this he had the unspoken support of England, which had considered the Versailles verdict too harsh. So, option ‘a’ is the correct answer.

Notes:
Socialist Parties had been organised in many countries of Europe, including France. Some of them had a large following also. In 1871, the first revolution inspired by the ideas of socialism had taken place in Paris. It is known in the history as the ‘Paris Commune’. This event is entangled with the ‘Franco-Prussian War’. The ‘Commune’ governed the city of Paris for some time. It represented the interest of workers, labourers and soldiers. But, its rule lasted only a few months as the French national forces supported by international groups crushed it. But, it is a very significant international event. The unfolding of the ‘Paris Commune’ episode deeply impacted the theories and writings of Karl Marx.