It All Happened in the 1940s...Or Did It? Quiz

Answer:

Events of the 1930s (Four incorrect answers):

The Dust Bowl was caused by a period of severe dust storms that greatly depleted the agricultural output and damaged the ecology of American prairies during the 1930s. There were three waves: 1934, 1936 and 1939-40. It was caused by a severe drought and human factors such as incorrect farming methods to prevent soil erosion. The Homestead Act of 1862 and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 attracted thousands of new migrants and immigrants. They reached the Great Plains to farm the land, but farming methods needed to be adapted for the semi-arid area with high winds. One hundred million acres (400,000 km2) were affected, mainly in the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma Panhandle, northwestern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, and central and western Kansas. The event drove people to abandon their farms and move to more temperate areas where they could take jobs, particularly in the Midwest manufacturing industries and California agricultural industries.

King Edward VIII became the monarch of the British Empire in January 1936 upon the death of his father, King George V. A constitutional crisis arose when he announced he would marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. Religious, legal, political, and moral objections were voiced by both the British government and the public. As a British monarch, Edward was the head of the Church of England, which did not permit divorced people to remarry in church. Nevertheless, the king abdicated to marry the woman he loved. Whilst given the titles of Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the couple lived in virtual exile in France for the 35 years they had together before Edward died in 1972.

Anschluss, in English, was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. This idea was first discussed after the 1871 unification of Germany excluded Austria from the Prussian-controlled German Empire but attracted support after the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart in 1918. The new Republic of Austria attempted to form a union with Germany, but the 1919 Treaty of Saint Germain and Treaty of Versailles did not permit such a union and even caused the Austrian Republic to lose some of its territory, specifically Sudetenland. A referendum was to be held to vote on the annexation despite the treaties' wording, but Hitler threatened an invasion and crossed into Austria unopposed the day before the referendum. A non-secret ballot plebiscite was held on 10 April with vote-rigging, threats and coercion in play, resulting in 99.7% 'approval' for the Anschluss.

The invasion of Poland, which occurred between 1 September - 6 October 1939 was a joint attack on Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which started World War II. The German invasion from the north and west of Poland began on 1 September, a mere one week after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was signed. It was a pact signifying that the two powers would not go to war against each other. The Soviets invaded Poland from the east on 17 September. The 'success' of the dual invasion ended the Second Polish Republic, even though Poland never formally surrendered.

Events of the 1940s (Ten correct answers):

By July 1940, Hitler's Germany occupied nearly all of Western Europe, but not Great Britain, neutral Spain, Sweden or Switzerland. Germany sought to negotiate a peace deal with Great Britain, but Britain would not enter any such pact and so began an air and sea blockade. The Luftwaffe, the German air force, attacked coastal shipping convoys, including ports and shipping centres, such as Plymouth and Portsmouth. This was the first military campaign fought totally by air forces. The battle was ramped up on August 1 when the Luftwaffe was ordered to "achieve air superiority over the RAF", attacking RAF airfields and their infrastructure, including aircraft production factories. The Luftwaffe failed, due in part to the superior planes of the RAF. Hitler called off the planned subsequent naval invasion of Britain in October 1940, though the night bombings, commonly called the Blitz, continued. Germany's failure to force an armistice, or an outright surrender, which was the original objective, was the first major German defeat in WWII.

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, was preceded by protracted negotiations between the US and Japan over Pacific Ocean sovereignty. Japan demanded that the United States end its sanctions against them, stop aid to China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and allow Japan to access the Dutch East Indies. Japan sent out its naval attack ships in November 1941. Japan intended the attack to prevent the United States Pacific Fleet from becoming involved with its planned military actions in British, Dutch, and American territories in Southeast Asia. Over seven hours on the 7th and 8th of December, there were well-planned Japanese attacks on the US-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, and the British Empire territories of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. All eight US battleships at Pearl Harbor were damaged and four sunk as were three cruisers and three destroyers. Over 180 US aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,403 Americans were killed. The Japanese declared war on the US and the British Empire several hours later. The British declared war on Japan immediately after the attacks on their territory. The US Congress declared war on Japan the next day.

More soldiers were killed on the Eastern Front than in all other WWII theatres combined. These fierce, protracted battles prevented Germany from providing a more determined defence against Allied armies on the Western Front. The four key battles that determined the outcome on the Eastern Front were Moscow in 1941, Stalingrad in 1942, Kursk in 1943, and Bagration in 1944. Of these key battles, the Battle of Stalingrad was the longest and bloodiest. It was fought between 17 July 1942 - 2 February 1943). The battle was a fight for the oilfields of the Caucasus and control of the Volga River, and Stalingrad was the 'obstruction' to that outcome. The battle was brutal as it involved bitter close-quarters street combat with even attacks on civilians from aerial bombardment. The Battle of Stalingrad was the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It is commonly believed to be the turning point in the European theatre of World War II.

D-Day is military jargon for the day of attack, but many people associate it with the Normandy landings and associated airborne manoeuvres that occurred by the Allies on June 6, 1944. This was the start of the liberation of France, Operation Overlord, and culminated in an Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for this event took over a year. Stalin wanted his British allies to create a second front in Western Europe as early as 1942. Churchill convinced Roosevelt and Stalin to postpone this as the Allies did not have the resources at that time to mount such a challenge. However, by late 1943, Stalingrad had been won and the Russians were advancing westward, the Allies had won North Africa, and Sicily and were working their way up the Italian peninsula. To have the massive proposed landing on the Normandy beaches, many more landing craft needed to be built. Operation Overlord was scheduled for May 1944 but bad weather, tides and the need for a full moon postponed the attack until June 5th 1944. Even then bad weather delayed the assault for another 24 hours. A significant deception was conducted simultaneously, code named Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. (This misinformation gave the landings at Norway and Calais, the latter 400 km to the north of Normandy). Nevertheless, when the landing of 24000 soldiers occurred on a 50-mile string of beaches in Normandy, the enemy was prepared and had the advantage of being much higher on cliffs above the beach. There were 4414 confirmed Allied deaths that day and the objective of reaching the towns of Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux was not achieved. However, the Allies did reach the beachheads and got a foothold in France. It would take 11 months for the Allies to reach Berlin and, with the Russians, end the war in Europe in May 1945.

By its fourth year in WWII in 1945, Americans had pushed the Japanese back to their own islands, but the cost had been enormous. What was telling was the 1.25 million US WWII casualties, over one million occurred in the last year as they advanced closer to Japan. The Americans prepared for the largest operation of the Pacific War, Operation Downfall, the Allied invasion of Japan. However, there were grave concerns about the American loss of life this attack would bring. A decision was made by President Truman to drop atomic bombs on key industrial and military cities in Japan instead, hoping this would end the war quickly. Nuclear fission was discovered as late as 1938, yet within seven years a nuclear bomb had been made which could raze a major city. On 6 August 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On 9 August another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. An estimated 90,000 to 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki died from the blast or the radiation sickness that afflicted those who survived the initial blast. The Japanese Emperor made the decision to surrender on August 12.
(Author's note. It is not appropriate in this forum to engage in an ethics debate and/or a justification for war. However, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the unfathomable magnitude of the loss of lives, both military personnel and civilians, during WWII. May we learn from our history that we must never repeat it.)

The League of Nations was formed after WWI, ostensibly to maintain world peace and prevent an atrocity such as WWI from ever recurring. It failed. Brilliantly conceived by US President Woodrow Wilson, it was one of 14 Points he had developed for lasting peace. Great Britain and France, two of the most influential members, chose to ignore the League when they tried to appease Hitler, and it was these actions that contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War. Additionally, fascist dictatorships (Germany, Italy and Japan), gained power in the '30s and strode towards empire-building, and, therefore, these countries defied the League. The League fell apart when WWII erupted. In 1945 near the end of the war, representatives from 50 countries convened at the San Francisco Opera House to create a charter for the United Nations, armed with the reasons for the failure of the League of Nations. At the forefront was the need to attain and maintain international peace and security and, secondly, "to achieve cooperation among nations on economic, social, and humanitarian problems". The charter established the aims, governing structure and the overall framework of the United Nations. It was signed on 26 June 1945. Poland subsequently joined the UN and the charter came into force on 24 October 1945 when the terms of the charter were ratified. The United Nations Day is now celebrated annually on this date. In 2011, the UN welcomed its 193rd member, South Sudan.

India was partitioned in 1947 which ended 300 years of British colonial rule, and gave India and Pakistan their independence, but at a price. After WWII Great Britain was unable to afford the control of India. At the same time, there was a groundswell amongst the Indian people that Muslims and Hindus could not live together in the same country. The British, before they withdrew, partitioned British India into a central Hindu state which became independent India and two Muslim areas in the east and west which became West and East Pakistan (the latter becoming Bangladesh in 1974). The partition line was decided by the Border Commissions led by Cyril Radcliffe who tried to divide equitably the two countries despite having never visited the subcontinent. This partition displaced 14.5 million people.7.2 million Muslims traveled from India to Pakistan and 7.3 million Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. Neither of the new governments could cope with this forced migration and hundreds of thousands of people died because of violence on both sides of the border. Parts of the new borders were disputed particularly in the Jammu and Kashmir regions where three wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999 were fought over boundaries. Even in the 21st century, India and Pakistan were not on friendly terms.

After the war, the rebuilding of Germany began, but it was split between the US, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Berlin was also divided into occupation zones - the Soviets controlled the eastern half, while the U.S., UK, and France controlled the west. Cooperation between the four allies deteriorated when the Soviets discovered the Allies were planning to form a new German state from their three zones. The introduction of a new currency, the Deutschmark, to be used in the three allied sectors, was the final straw for the Russians. The German capital was situated deep in the Russian Zone so on June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded all road, rail, and water routes into Berlin's allied sector, cutting off the influx of food, coal, and other essentials. However, the Soviets could not block Allied airspace, so on 26 June the US first, and then the UK soon after, organised to fly all needed items into Berlin for two million people. The airlift was a success! At one point, planes landed at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport every 45 seconds. After 10 months, the Allies proved they could keep this up indefinitely. A counter-blockade was causing severe shortages in the Russian sector and the world perceived the Soviets as bullies, so they lifted the airlift on May 11, 1949, but the airlift remained in place until September 30 in case the Soviets reversed their decision.

The quest for a Jewish homeland has had a troubled past. In 1917, the British Government issued a public statement, subsequently called the Balfour Declaration, which announced its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. At the time Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire with a small population of Jews. In 1922 the League of Nations placed Palestine, as one of the former Ottoman territories, under the UK administration. All of the Ottoman territories became fully independent states in time, except Palestine. Between 1922 and 1947, thousands of Jews had been forced to leave Europe. They wanted their own country where they could feel safe. In 1948, the British withdrew from Palestine and the United Nations assumed control of the region The UN favoured partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalised according to Resolution 181 (II) of 1947. One of the two proposed states proclaimed its independence as Israel. However, Palestinians believed that the whole region should be run by Arabs and an armed conflict which lasted a year, erupted. Palestinians were supported by armies from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, but the Israelis won the war. In 1949, the territory was partitioned into the State of Israel for Jewish people and the West Bank, East Jerusalem (both controlled by Jordan), and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt) for Arabs. This did not lead to peace; land boundaries and shipping routes were disputed and violence escalated. In 1967, the Six-Day War erupted and Israel took control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had Jordanian citizenship until 1988 when Jordan severed its ties with these external territories. Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting over these areas for at least 70 years.

Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. This ended the costly civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, known as the Kuomintang (KMT), which started in 1945 after World War II had ended and the Japanese had left the Chinese region of Manchuria. Even before WWII, there had been periodic conflict between the two political entities since the 1920s. After the proclamation, the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek retreated to the island of Taiwan, where they continued to receive support from the US government and recognition as the only Chinese nation. The start of the Korean War in 1950 saw the US and the CCP on different sides of the war, keeping the two countries apart for decades. There were no diplomatic ties between mainland China and the US until US President Nixon visited Beijing in 1972. After the proclamation in 1949, China transformed its economy as means of production were transferred from private to public entities. Industry was nationalised in 1955, and then the state took complete control of the economy, copying the economic models of the Soviet Union.

Events of the 1950s (Two incorrect answers):

Princess Elizabeth acceded to the throne at age 25 when her father, King George VI, died on 6 February 1952. On 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey in London, she was crowned Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. This was the fourth British coronation of the 20th Century and the first to be televised. It included the full pomp and circumstance of British regalia and the extravagance was justified as it brought some joy to Britons living an austere existence due to the economic consequences of a prolonged World War.

The Warsaw Pact, or more correctly, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, in May 1955, between the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Ostensibly it was established to balance the power of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc. Apart from the unaligned Yugoslavia and the neutral states of Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland, the pact divided Europe into two factions with the so-called Iron Curtain, the dividing line between the two blocs. The three main consequences of the pact were: The USSR had increased control over its satellite states in eastern Europe as it dominated the Pact; Europe was now divided into two hostile and nervous camps in political, economic, cultural and military terms; and it accelerated the arms race with the West. There were few casualties in the Cold War but it was a war nonetheless.