World History MCQs

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The Bolshevik group in Russian Revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin. Vladimir Lenin was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He is known to have developed a variant of Marxism known as Leninism.

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The Bolsheviks overthrew Tsar. Bolshevik Revolution of Russia took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky. The Russian monarchy was overthrown in March 1917.

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General Franco established dictatorship in Spain with the support of Hitler and Mussolini. He was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.

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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.

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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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The French Revolution was a period of social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789 and ending in 1799. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon, who brought many of the revolution’s principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas such as equality before the law, the Revolution influenced the decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies.

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Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at university. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the reading room of the British Museum. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx’s political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun and a school of social theory.

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The National Schism, sometimes called The Great Division, was a series of disagreements between King Constantine I and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos regarding the foreign policy of Greece in the period of 1910–1922 of which the tipping point was whether Greece should enter World War I. Venizelos was in support of the Allies and wanted Greece to join the war on their side, while the pro-German King wanted Greece to remain neutral, which would favour the plans of the Central Powers.

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The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation, or New JEWEL Movement (NJM), was a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party in the Caribbean island nation of Grenada that was led by Maurice Bishop. Established in 1973, the NJM issued its manifesto prior to the granting of Independence to Grenada in 1974. The movement took control of the country with a successful revolution in 1979 and ruled by decree as the People’s Revolutionary Government until 1983. In 1983, Bishop was killed by paramilitaries affiliated with hard-liners in his own party. This led to a military government, which was deposed by the US military in a 1983 invasion.

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The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence was an armed Independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea between 1963 and 1974. Fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, an armed independence movement backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union, the war is commonly referred to as “Portugal’s Vietnam” due to the large numbers of men and amounts of material expended in a long, mostly guerrilla war and the internal political turmoil it created in Portugal. The war ended when Portugal, after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, granted independence to Guinea-Bissau, followed by Cape Verde a year later.