World History MCQs

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 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.

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Administration of Germany, post World War II, was the subject-matter/agenda of “Potsdam Conference”. The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, represented respectively by Premier Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier on the 8th of May (Victory in Europe Day). The goals of the conference also included the establishment of the postwar order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war.

Notes:
Germany’s unification was achieved through the “Two Plus Four Agreement”. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany or the Two Plus Four Agreement was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, allowing a reunited Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. On the other hand, Germany agreed to confirm its acceptance of its existing border with Poland and accepted that the borders of Germany after unification would correspond only to the territories then administered by West and East Germany, with the exclusion and renunciation of any other territorial claims.

Notes:
1940-1941 was the period of the Battle of Greece. The Battle of Greece (also known as Operation Marita) is the common name for the invasion of Allied Greece by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in April 1941 during World War II. The Italian invasion in October 1940, which is usually known as the Greco-Italian War, was followed by the German invasion in April 1941. German landings on the island of Crete (May 1941) came after Allied forces had been defeated in mainland Greece. These battles were part of the greater Balkan Campaign of Germany.

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Amilcar Cabral was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, pan-Africanist, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat. He was one of Africa’s foremost anti-colonial leaders. Also known by the name Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before Guinea-Bissau’s unilateral declaration of independence. He was deeply influenced by Marxism and became an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national independence movements worldwide.

Notes:
Haiti gained independence in 1804 from France. In 1697 France and Spain settled their hostilities on the Hispaniola Island by way of the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, which divided Hispaniola between them. France received the western third and subsequently named it Saint-Domingue, the French equivalent of Santo Domingo, the Spanish colony on Hispaniola. The French set about creating sugar and coffee plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves imported from Africa, and Saint-Domingue grew to become their richest colonial possession. Inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 and principles of the rights of man, the French settlers and free people of colour pressed for greater political freedom and more civil rights. The slaves, along with free gens de couleur and allies, continued their fight for independence, led by generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Alexandre Petion and Henry Christophe. The rebels finally managed to decisively defeat the French troops at the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1804, leading the first-ever nation to successfully gain independence through a slave revolt.

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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.

Notes:
1944-1945 is the period of the “Battle of Budapest/Siege of Budapest”. The Siege of Budapest or Battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was first encircled on 26 December 1944 by the Red Army and the Romanian Army. During the siege, about 38,000 civilians died through starvation or military action. The city unconditionally surrendered on 13 February 1945. It was a strategic victory for the Allies in their push towards Berlin.

Notes:
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.