Where did this Happen? 1920s Edition Quiz

Answer: Hungary

Miklos Horthy de Nagybanya was born in 1868 in a small town in what was then still the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. He chose a career in the Austrian-Hungarian Navy and rose to the rank of vice-admiral and chief of staff in 1918. After the First World War, the Empire Austria-Hungary broke up, and several new countries arose. One of these new countries was landlocked Hungary, on the territory in which Horthy lived. As his new country did not need a vice-admiral (nor a navy), Horthy turned to another career: that of politics. The national assembly chose the kingdom, but the Allies from the First World War were reluctant to allow the return of the only candidate to the throne - the former Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Charles (Charles I in Austria, Charles III in Bohemia or Charles IV in Hungary). So Hungary was turned into a Kingdom, without any suitable candidate for the throne. Miklos Horthy assumed the position of Regent and would remain in office until 1944. A few months after Horthy's abdication, Hungary became a People's Republic where the communists ruled.

Question by JanIQ

Answer: Monaco

Monte Carlo hosted the 1921 event. One hundred women from five countries participated in ten track and field events. This event was put on because women were not allowed to participate in track and field events in the upcoming 1924 Olympics.

Question by Joepetz

Answer: Italy

Some 30 to 34 countries took part in the Genoa Conference, among them Britain, France, Italy, German, Russia, and Japan; the USA did not. American historian Alfred L.P. Dennis suggested that one of the factors keeping the USA away was an unwillingness to discuss debts. The meeting faced insurmountable obstacles. Both France and Belgium were insisting on full payment of prewar loans and the return of property confiscated by Soviet Russia; Russia wanted to limit the repayment amounts and wanted significant trade and technological assistance. Western countries were not ready to offer very much in loans. The Russians were also calling for disarmament and representation of the British and French colonies. Neither side met with success. While the conference was considered a failure by many, there were a few outcomes, one being a partial return to the gold standard.

Question by pitegny

Answer: Germany

All four of these countries suffered hyperinflation at least once, but the 1923 instance hit Germany. Within the course of one year, the value of a Papiermark (paper mark) decreased by a factor of 500 million with November alone seeing a devaluation factor of 295 in the 20 days before the new Rentenmark was introduced. While these numbers are extreme, they pale compared to the Zimbabwean hyperinflation of 2006 to 2009 that saw three redenominations totalling a factor of 10 septillion (10^25) and the Hungarian one of 1946 that saw a redenomination by a factor of 400 octillion (4x10^29) and price doublings every 15 hours.

Question by WesleyCrusher

Answer: France

The first Winter Olympics were held in the French ski resort of Chamonix from 5 January to 5 February 1924. The Games were actually commissioned as an "International Winter Sports Week" to be held in conjunction with that year's Summer Olympic Games, which had been awarded to Paris. They were retrospectively designated as the first Winter Olympiad after the International Olympic Committee took the decision to formally separate the two events the following year.

The 16 nations who took part were all European, with the exception of the United States and Canada, and their athletes competed for a total of 16 gold medals in five main categories of events - skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling and ice hockey.

Switzerland, the United States and Germany, in that order, were the next three host nations of the Winter Olympics between 1928 and 1936.

Question by Fifiona81

Answer: USA

In 1925 Alaska was still a territory, not a state, of the USA. A diphtheria (deadly childhood disease) outbreak occurred in Nome after it was snowed-in for the winter. The diphtheria antitoxin doses held in Nome were out of date. The only link to the rest of the world was through miles of wild, mountainous trails and across shifting sea ice. Teams of "mushers" (drivers) and their dog teams volunteered for the dangerous mission to get ampules of antitoxin to Nome. They succeeded, but at great personal cost and the death of many dogs. The new mass media of the period, radio, followed the story closely and it was reported around the world. The famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race follows part of the trail of the 1925 Serum Run.

Question by em1958

Answer: England

John Logie Baird, born in Scotland in 1888, had spent years experimenting with the medium, building on Arthur Korn's successful image transmitting circuits, which had been used to transmit still pictures over long distances. Working with a few cheap materials including a used tea chest and a hatbox, he experimented using scanning systems, and by late 1925 he was successfully transmitting moving images.

When he approached the "Daily Express" newspaper seeking promotion, he was ejected from the building as a lunatic. He persevered, however, and managed to gather some members of the Royal Institution and a "Times" reporter to observe a demonstration of his moving image transmissions in his laboratory in Frith Street, Westminster, London on Thursday, 28 January 1926. This successful demonstration helped secure funds for Baird to continue to refine and improve his system, using better equipment. Remarkably, he went on to develop the world's first colour television as early as 1928.

Question by windrush

Answer: Japan

Japan's first underground passenger railway opened in Tokyo on 30 December 1927. A businessman Noritsugu Hayakawa was behind the project. In the beginning, the railway consisted of a single line, the Ginza Line, which was only 2.2 km long at the time of the inauguration. It is still in operation, part of the Tokyo subway system.

Question by pitegny

Answer: Australia

The Reverend John Flynn was appointed Superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) and formed the AIM Aerial Medical Service as a one-year experiment based in Queensland, Australia. This experiment evolved into what is now known in Australia as the Royal Flying Doctor Service, a medical service working with remote and rural communities in regional areas of Australia. RFDS is one of the largest aeromedical organisations in the world.

Question by Lones78

Answer: Vatican City

In the late 19th century, Rome was captured as part of the process to create a unified kingdom of Italy. The Pope, who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, refused to recognize the authority of the king and submit to him despite the king offering to let him keep a part of Rome as a separate entity. Pope Pius IX then remained within the walls of the Vatican considering that stepping out would be an acknowledgement of the king's authority over Rome. This was continued by his successors for the next 59 years! Finally, on 11 February 1929 Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the then Pope, Pius XI, establishing the Vatican City as an independent state. This was ratified on 7 June of the same year, and a month later on 25 July, the Pope finally ended his self-imprisonment within the Vatican.

Question by zorba_scank