World History MCQs

Notes:
The Portuguese established outposts in Timor and Maluku islands of Lesser Sunda Islands of Malay Archipelago. Effective European occupation of a small part of present-day East Timor began in 1769 when the city of Dili was founded and the colony of Portuguese Timor declared. For the Portuguese, East Timor remained little more than a neglected trading post until the late nineteenth century, with minimal investment in infrastructure, health, and education. Sandalwood continued to be the main export crop with coffee exports becoming significant in the mid-nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a faltering home economy prompted the Portuguese to extract greater wealth from its colonies, which was met with East Timorese resistance. Following the 1974 Portuguese Revolution, Portugal effectively abandoned its colony in Timor and civil war between East Timorese political parties broke out in 1975. The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) resisted a Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) coup attempt in August 1975, and unilaterally declared independence on 28 November 1975. Fearing a communist state within the Indonesian archipelago, the Indonesian military launched an invasion of East Timor in December 1975. Indonesia declared East Timor its 27th province on 17 July 1976. The UN Security Council opposed the invasion and the territory’s nominal status in the UN remained as “non-self-governing territory under Portuguese administration”.The 1991 Dili Massacre was a turning point for the independence cause and an East Timor solidarity movement grew in Portugal, the Philippines, Australia, and other Western countries. The Santa Cruz Massacre (also known as the Dili Massacre) was the shooting of at least 250 East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and is part of the East Timorese genocide. Following the resignation of Indonesian president of Suharto, an UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal allowed for an UN-supervised popular referendum in August 1999. A clear vote for independence was met with a punitive campaign of violence by East Timorese pro-integration militia supported by elements of the Indonesian military. With Indonesian permission, an Australian-led multinational peacekeeping force (INTERFET) was deployed until the order was restored. On 25 October 1999, the administration of East Timor was taken over by the UN through the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), headed by Sergio Vieira de Mello. The INTERFET deployment ended in February 2000 with the transfer of military command to the UN. On 30 August 2001, the East Timorese voted in their first election organised by the UN to elect members of the Constituent Assembly. On 22 March 2002, the Constituent Assembly approved the Constitution. By May 2002, over 205,000 refugees had returned. On 20 May 2002, the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of East Timor came into force and East Timor was recognised as independent by the UN.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
Continuation War was fought as part of the Eastern Front of World War II from 25 June 1941 to 19 September 1944 by Finland and Nazi Germany on one side and the Soviet Union on the other side. This war began after the Interim Peace period from 13 March 1940 to 25 June 1941 following the Winter War. Finland invaded the Soviet Union to regain the territories lost during the Winter War. The Continuation War led to the victory of the Soviet Union which further leads to the signing of the Moscow Armistice which ceded the Petsamo region and leased the Porkkala Peninsula to the USSR.

Notes:
Finlandization is a general term used to denote the foreign subjugation of a smaller country by another powerful country. It is a process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country abide by the farmer’s foreign policy rules while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. The term means “to become like Finland”, referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland’s policies during the Cold War.

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.

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The German Revolution of 1918-1919 or November Revolution, happened as part of the Revolutions of 1917–1923 and political violence in Germany (1918–33), was a civil conflict in the German Empire at the end of the First World War that resulted in the replacement of the German federal constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliamentary republic that later became known as the Weimar Republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the adoption in August 1919 of the Weimar Constitution. It leads to the Weimar Republic victory, abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II, the monarchy of Germany and its 22 constituent monarchies abolished, suppression of leftist uprisings, including Spartacist uprising, end of the First World War and the establishment of the Weimar Republic.

Notes:
Germany’s private army was “Freikorps”. Freikorps were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regardless of their own nationality. In German-speaking countries, the first so-called Freikorps were formed in the 18th century from native volunteers, enemy renegades, and deserters. In the aftermath of World War I and during the German Revolution of 1918–19, Freikorps consisting largely of World War I veterans were raised as right-wing paramilitary militias. They were ostensibly mustered to fight on behalf of the government against the Soviet-backed German Communists attempting to overthrow the Weimar Republic. But, the Freikorps largely despised the Republic and were involved in assassinations of its supporters.

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Post-World War II reorganization of Germany and Europe was the subject-matter/agenda of the “Yalta Conference”. The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union. The aim of the conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order but a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of post-Nazi Europe. The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.

Notes:
The Battle of Sakarya, also known as the Battle of the Sangarios, was an important engagement in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), the western front of the Turkish War of Independence. The battle went on for 21 days from August 23 to September 13, 1921, close to the banks of the Sakarya River, which is today in a district of the Ankara Province. It is also known as the Officers’ Battle in Turkey because of the unusually high casualty rate (70–80%) among the officers. The Battle of Sakarya is considered as the turning point of the Turkish War of Independence. This battle leads to the Turkish victory.

Notes:
1915-1934 was the period of the event “United States occupation of Haiti”. The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 US Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the authority of US President Woodrow Wilson. The July intervention took place following the murder of dictator President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam by insurgents angered by his political murders of elite opposition. The occupation ended on August 1, 1934, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of US Marines departed on August 15, 1934, after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde d’Haiti.