World History MCQs

Notes:
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 was the location of the “Berlin Wall”. The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defences. In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in November 1991. The “fall of the Berlin Wall” paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.

Notes:
Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the mechanical movable type printing press, is a German printer. Johannes Gutenberg (1400–1468) was a German goldsmith, inventor, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe with the introduction of the mechanical movable type printing press. His work started the Printing Revolution and is regarded as a milestone of the second millennium, ushering in the modern period of human history. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, Age of Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution, as well as laying the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.

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The Battle of the Metaxas Line, also known in Greece as the Battle of the Forts, was the first battle during the German invasion of Greece in World War II. The Germans succeeded in capturing several individual forts but failed to breach the fortified Metaxas Line in general. The capture of Thessaloniki forced the Greek East Macedonia Army Section to surrender on the 10th of April and the Metaxas Line battle was over.

Notes:
The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a series of far-right military juntas that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou’s Center Union was favoured to win. The dictatorship was characterised by right-wing cultural policies, restrictions on civil liberties, and the imprisonment, torture, and exile of political opponents. An attempt to renew its support in a 1973 referendum on the monarchy and gradual democratisation was ended by another coup by hardliner Dimitrios Ioannidis. The junta’s rule ended on 24 July 1974 under the pressure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, leading to the Metapolitefsi (“regime change”) to democracy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.

Notes:
To peacefully campaign for the independence of Guinea-Bissau from Portugal was the original purpose for the formation of the the “African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC)”. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) is a political party in Guinea-Bissau. Originally formed to a peaceful campaign for independence from Portugal, the party turned to armed conflict in the 1960s and was one of the belligerents in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. Towards the end of the war, the party established a socialist one-party state, which remained intact until multi-party democracy was introduced in the early 1990s.

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.

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Indonesia was the location of the event “May 1998 riots/1998 tragedy”. The May 1998 riots of Indonesia, also known as the 1998 tragedy, were incidents of mass violence, demonstrations, and civil unrest of a racial nature that occurred throughout Indonesia. The riots were triggered by economic problems, including food shortages and mass unemployment. It eventually led to the resignation of President Suharto and the fall of the New Order government.

Notes:
Iran was the supply route in the “Persian Corridor” by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. The Persian Corridor was a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Of the 17.5 million long tons of U.S. Lend-Lease aid provided to Russia, 7.9 million long tons (45%) were sent through Iran.

Notes:
The NATO played a significant role by intervening in the Kosovo war to end the war in 1999.