1930s History Trivia

1. What major sport event was held for the first time in 1930?

From Quiz 20th-Century History in the 1930s

Answer: FIFA World Cup

Uruguay hosted the inaugural tournament at Montevideo. Only 13 nations took part in the tournament. Host nation Uruguay won the tournament beating Argentina 4-2 in the final match. English Football League was established in 1888. Winter Olympics was first hosted in 1924 by France and the first 24-hour race at Le Mans in 1923.

From Quiz Where did this Happen?: 1930s Edition

Answer: Uruguay

Compared to the spectacles of today, the 1930 tournament was a rather simple affair. There were no qualifiers - any FIFA member interested could field a team. Yet, it proved extremely difficult for the organizers to raise interest from any non-American nations and in the end, they managed to persuade only four teams from Europe to make the long and expensive trip. The only one of them to make it to the elimination rounds was Yugoslavia, who lost their semifinal match to later champions Uruguay. The Belgian referee assigned to the final match was so afraid for his life that he would only agree to oversee it after a boat was provided for him to be able to leave the area quickly. Times have changed for sure...

From Quiz What Else Happened In 1939

Answer: Superman

Superman was a daily newspaper comic strip which began on January 16, 1939, having arrived a year earlier in Action Comics. A separate Sunday strip was added on November 5, 1939. They ran until May 1966. Batman first appeared in Detective Comics in the same year, but this magazine was published monthly. March 1941 saw the first appearance of Iron Man in Better Comics and Spider-Man swung into action in Marvel's Amazing Fantasy comic book in August 1962.

From Quiz I Don't Remember This, Do You?

Answer: The United States

The Great Depression came about as a result of the sudden "crash" of the stock market in the United States. October 29, 1929 became known as "Black Tuesday", since it was the date that the crash began to take its devastating toll on the industrialized world's economies. Eventually, most nations on earth felt its effects as production of goods ground to a halt; banks failed due to generalized panic; farming began to cost more than profits were able to offset. In general, there was no "quick fix" to the problems, with the economies of many countries suffering horrific losses. Let's not forget; people were suffering in all sorts of ways, up to and including loss of jobs, with its resultant loss of quality of life and in a myriad of different ways, not the least of which was deprivation or even starvation of some of the most poverty-stricken. While economists still disagree on the major causes of the Great Depression, one thing is certain - the effects of it were felt worldwide for most of the decade of the 1930s and even beyond.

From Quiz U.S. Events of the 1930s: What Didn't Happen?

Answer: The New York Stock Exchange crashes.

In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, not 1930, more than $30 billion were lost from total value of stocks and shares on the New York Stock Exchange (more than the federal budget tenfold at the time). Thus began the Great Depression. The term "Hooverville" was first used in 1930 by a Democratic Senator, and it caught on. Between 1929 and 1933, more than 100,000 businesses failed. Consequently, Hoovervilles arose throughout the country -- shantytowns made of cardboard, tin, and other materials for the new homeless families. The largest of these was in New York City's Central Park, but nearly every city in the USA had one. They were named after President Hoover, whose policies had failed to provide an economic safety net for these people or even immediate, temporary relief from hunger, homelessness, disease, and despair. In December 1930, Secretary of Labor Doak began the Mexican Repatriation. Throughout the entire decade were Mexicans and Mexican-American citizens of the U.S. deported en masse from California to Mexico, without due process. Many were asked to leave "voluntarily" or risk being banned for life. The justification, as it were, was that Hispanic migrant workers were taking away agricultural jobs to which white men were entitled. That many who were deported were children and native-born American citizens was not considered. The London Naval Treaty's full name was the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament. It regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding. Other signatory states were Italy and France.

From Quiz The 30s, Gangster Style

Answer: Serving a prison sentence for assault and robbery

He actually was a skilled machinist and had deserted from the Navy. His father owned a farm in Moorsville, Indiana, but John just didn't like the rural life.

From Quiz Which Country (1936)?

Answer: France

The French seemed a natural ally of the left-wing (Republican) government. The French government at the time consisted of a coalition of mostly socialist and other left-wing groups. The Communists had decided not to be involved in the government, but had joined a single platform with the socialists before the elections, under the name the "Popular Front" - the same name used by the combined left-wing parties in Spain. In France, however, the memory of World War I still overshadowed foreign politics, and the government's main concern was to avoid anything like it happening again. It therefore chose strict neutrality in the Spanish conflict, and made other countries promise the same. Although all major European powers made such promises, they were broken on a large scale by Italy and Germany, which supported the (right-wing) Nationalists. In reaction, the (left-wing) Republicans got support from the Soviet Union. Portugal supported the Nationalists, though not on such a grand scale as the Italians and Germans did.

From Quiz Which Country (1935)?

Answer: Soviet Union

Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev had, together with Stalin, formed the ruling triumvirate of the Soviet Communist party during Lenin's illness, but in 1925 they broke with Stalin and formed a front with his opponent Trotsky. In late 1934 they were arrested after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, and in 1935 they were convicted of 'moral complicity' in Kirov's murder. In 1936, during the first large show trial, both would be sentenced to death for being part of a supposed 'Trotskyite' conspiracy.

From Quiz 1930s (Mostly American) #2

Answer: Sonja Henie

Sonja Henie is also one of an elite group of athletes who have won gold medals in three consecutive Olympic games (1928, 1932, 1936).

From Quiz 1930s (Mostly American) #1

Answer: Poland

Ironically, it was Polish cryptographers who broke the code on the vaunted "Enigma" machine, a cipher machine used widely by the German Navy to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. This allowed the Allies to intercept German messages which proved vital in the Battle of the Atlantic.

From Quiz The World in a 1935 Handbook

Answer: Victor Emmanuel III

Victor Emmanuel III was only the second King of a united Italy. He abdicated in May 1946, three weeks before the monarchy, in the shape of his son Umberto II, was narrowly rejected by the Italian people in a post-war referendum. Victor Emmanuel was so diminutive that Kaiser Wilhelm II habitually called him 'the dwarf'.

From Quiz 1931- The Year of My Birth

Answer: Herbert Hoover

In 1931 the U.S. (together with most of the rest of the world) was in the throes of a deep depression. There were numerous bank closures and high unemployment. Hoover asked the country "to remain steadfast in this 'Valley Forge' of depression."

From Quiz The 20th Century 1931-1940

Answer: Elijah Poole

The Black Muslims were first formed in Detroit, Michigan.

From Quiz 1930s History

Answer: Huey Long

FDR called Long 'the most dangerous man in America.' He was killed before he could run for President in earnest.

From Quiz 20th-Century History in the 1930s

Answer: Manchuria

The Kwantung Army of Japan invaded Manchuria following the Mukden (present-day Shenyang) incident aka "918 incident". The Japanese carried out a plan to place a bomb to destroy the South Manchurian Railway owned by Japan. They put the blame on the Chinese and then used the incident as an excuse to attack Shenyang. They eventually occupied Manchuria consisted of three Chinese provinces: Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. In 1932, they created a puppet state named Manchukuo. They occupied the territory until the USSR and Mongolia began a successful offensive in August 1945.

From Quiz Where did this Happen?: 1930s Edition

Answer: China

After three years of heavy drought, China saw massive snowfalls in the 1930/31 winter, followed by torrential rain in spring and summer of 1931. These amounts of water, largely unable to filter into the parched ground, led to water levels up to 16 meters above normal and flooded an area equivalent to more than half of Britain. At least 422,000 people died of drowning, disease and starvation; most estimates put that number much higher - between 2 and 4 million. The number displaced was much larger still; estimates range from 25 to 53 million affected. As a reaction, damming and flood protection programs were begun, however the wars of the 1930s and 40s prevented any significant progress on those and catastrophic floods along the Yangtze river continue into the 21st century.

From Quiz What Else Happened In 1939

Answer: Roger Bannister

It would be 15 years later on 6th May 1954 that Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4 - the first man to run a sub-four minute mile. His record lasted just a couple of weeks before Australian John Landy shaved a second off it. Today the current record is 3:43.13.

From Quiz The 30s, Gangster Style

Answer: fourteen months

From June, 1933 to July, 1934, he robbed banks, raided police stations for weapons, escaped jail, and generally made life miserable for the Indiana State Police and the FBI. The general public at the time had very little trust in, or sympathy for banks, and many regarded him as a Robin Hood like hero.

From Quiz 30s Love (Mainly American)

Answer: "Dracula" and "Frankenstein"

Bram Stoker's story first appeared on screen as "Nosferatu" in 1922. That movie, however, was not authorized by Stoker's estate and the court ordered all prints destroyed. Producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. legally acquired the rights to the screenplay and produced "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi in 1931. As was the case with Dracula, movies about Frankenstein appeared before the 1931 version. In 1910 a movie titled "Frankenstein" was released and five years later another adaptation titled "Life Without Soul" was released. The 1931 "Frankenstein" movie however has become the iconographic film featuring the monster. This movie starred Boris Karloff as the monster and was directed by James Whale. Whale went on to direct "The Invisible Man", "The Bride of Frankenstein" and "Show Boat"? Yes, "Show Boat", as well as several other films.

From Quiz Which Country (1936)?

Answer: Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo (full name Santo Domingo de Guzmán) was destroyed by a hurricane in 1930, giving the megalomanic dictator Rafael Trujillo, who had come into power only a few weeks earlier, the chance to rebuild the city in accordance with his own ideas. When it was finished, he had it renamed Ciudad Trujillo. After Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, the city got its old name back.

From Quiz Which Country (1934)?

Answer: Manchukuo & Manchuria

Manchukuo was a Japanese vassal state, established to put northern China under Japanese control. The emperor was Pu Yi, who as a boy had been the last emperor of China, but who in his new empire was of course little more than a puppet of the Japanese.

From Quiz Which Country (1935)?

Answer: Ethiopia and Italy

Mussolini used the Ual-Ual incident to prepare for the invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). When an international committee decided that the Ethiopians were in the right, he dropped his claim to Ual-Ual, but kept his warlike attitude, making heavy demands on other points and further militarizing Eritrea and Italian Somaliland until the Italians finally invaded Ethiopia later that year.

From Quiz 1930s (Mostly American) #2

Answer: Superman

Legend has it that the Superman's secret identity, Clark Kent, was named for the famous screen star of the era, Clark Gable.

From Quiz 1930s (Mostly American) #1

Answer: Pius XI

Pius XI was Pope from 1922-1939. Benedict XVI is the current Pope (as of 2008). John XXIII served from 1958 - 1963 and opened the Second Vatican Council ("Vatican II"). John Paul I was Pope for only a month in 1978. He was succeeded by John Paul II, 1978 - 2005.

From Quiz The World in a 1935 Handbook

Answer: Mafeking

Bechuanaland had allegedly feared Boer incursion and conveniently asked the British for 'protection'. The town of Mafeking withstood a seven month siege under the command of Robert Baden-Powell during the Boer War (1899-1902), the successful relief of which was greeted with wild rejoicing as the Empire vanquished yet another mighty opponent. Despite pressure, the Bechuanese never really fancied becoming part of South Africa (hmmm, I wonder why that might have been?) and finally achieved independence in 1966, when the country's name was changed to Botswana. Curiously, Mafeking itself IS now in South Africa and has undergone a name-change, to Mafikeng.

From Quiz 1931- The Year of My Birth

Answer: Nine million

This was a dark time in the nation's history. There were numerous banks which failed, many people stood in bread lines, and men rode the rails seeking work anywhere they could find it.

From Quiz 1930s History

Answer: Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau had it: 'Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.'

From Quiz 20th-Century History in the 1930s

Answer: BBC

BBC originally known as British Broadcasting Company was incorporated in London in 1922. It was renamed as British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927. BBC World Service was launched on December 19, 1932. The BBC World Service is the world's largest broadcaster, presented in more than 40 languages. NBC was established in 1926, CBS in 1929 and ABC in 1945.

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