Acronyms in History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Unrestricted submarine warfare

Germany's Navy was no match for Britain's Royal Navy and Britain had Germany blockaded pretty early on in the war. Germany's only hope was using U-boats (submarines). The problem was that they began sinking any commercial ship that entered what they deemed to be the war zone, even ships from neutral countries, and largely did not give the crew advance warning to get to safety before sinking the ship.

The United States was especially concerned about ships carrying Americans; when the Lusitania was sunk in 1915, 128 Americans aboard died. US President Woodrow Wilson warned Germany a few times against the campaign of USW, and Germany backed off, as Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg absolutely did not want the US joining the war on the side of the Allies. However, early in 1917, under pressure from the Navy, the Army and the Kaiser, Bethmann Hollweg announced that the unrestricted submarine warfare was to resume. The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917.

Answer: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

The USSR, also called the Soviet Union, was formed in 1922 when Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks won the Russian civil war. Russia became a Socialist (Communist) state and several other republics surrounding it were amalgamated into the USSR. The Cold War was a political conflict between this Communist state and its Eastern Bloc allies, and the Western Bloc, headed by the United States.

The Berlin Wall, a literal barrier between east and west, began to come down in 1989 and the USSR officially dissolved in 1991.

Answer: Women's Army Corps

The WAC began as the WAAC (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) in 1941. Those who pushed for its creation wanted fair treatment and benefits for the women who served their country during WWII, unlike many who contributed in WWI without receiving paid-for room and board, medical care or pensions.

The United States Army did not want to accept women into its organization, and so the unit was an auxiliary corps at first, women who could work WITH the army but not IN the army. In 1943, the WAAC became the WAC, an actual branch of the Army, and the women who served with the WAAC were able to actually enlist. Those who did became the first women to wear military uniforms in the US. Though many served in the US during the war, many others were transported overseas.

Their roles included working as radio operators, translators, stenographers, cryptologists, administrative medical personnel, and many other duties. The WAC was disbanded in 1978 and since then women in the army have belonged to the same branches and units as the men, with women allowed to be in combat roles since 1994.

Answer: Front de Libération du Québec

The FLQ was an extremist group of supporters of the Quebec separatist movement, people who wanted Quebec to separate from Canada and become a sovereign nation. The FLQ considered themselves to be socialist and wanted to establish a workers' society, but the group was denounced by the Soviet Union as a terrorist organization.

The October Crisis of 1970 occurred when members of the FLQ kidnapped the British Trade Commissioner James Cross from his diplomatic residence in Montreal. A few days later, the Labour Minister of the Quebec government, Pierre Laporte, was also kidnapped from his home. Laporte was later killed by his captors and Cross was finally released after being held for 60 days. During this time, the Governor General of Canada, at the request of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, invoked the War Measures Act for the first time during peacetime. This meant that civil liberties for citizens were suspended and police forces had more power and authority to arrest and detain anyone they wanted to.

Answer: Royal Flying Corps

The RAF, the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force, was founded on April 1, 1918 and was the world's first air force that was a branch of the military all on its own, as opposed to part of an army or navy. Prior to this, Britain's wartime air support was provided by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. During the interwar years, the RAF was reduced and did not see much action, but was greatly expanded during the Second World War.

Answer: Non-Aligned Movement

NAM began as an informal organization of nations who did not want to align with either of the power blocs during the Cold War. Indonesia (under Sukarno), India (Nehru), Yugoslavia (Tito) and Egypt (Nasser) are considered to be founders of the movement.

These leaders were brought together with other nations at the 1955 Bandung Conference, a key moment in the development of NAM. NAM continued to exist after the end of the Cold War, with a shift in political focuses.

Answer: Anti-Saloon League

The Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1873 by the Reverend Howard Hyde Russell. The ASL was the most successful organization of the temperance movement in the US. This was because they focused on their one main issue and changing the law, rather than changing the drinking habits of individual people.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union, on the other hand, spread their focus on other issues as well, such as suffrage and tobacco reform, and also focused a lot on morality. They were also more religiously prejudiced than the ASL and did not receive much support from people who were not Protestant.

Answer: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

The first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks took place in 1969 between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the aim of coming to an agreement about arms control. Following events like the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, both sides of the conflict came to realize how close they could come to destroying a large part of the world with nuclear arms.

A second round of talks took place in the 1970s. The acronym SALT also stands for Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, the resulting agreements from the talks.

The United States, however, never ratified the SALT II treaty, as the period of détente came to an end in the 1980s, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Ronald Reagan's assumption of the presidency of the United States.

Answer: Rwanda

The mission was intended to bring an end to the Rwandan Civil War with the implementation of the Arusha Accords, which were signed by the government and the rebel forces the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front). In April 1994, however, with the peacekeepers in the country, the Rwandan genocide took place, in which supporters of the Hutu-led government began killing members of the country's other main ethnic group, the Tutsis. Over 500,000 people were killed in a little over three months. Though the UN mission tried in ways to help, including Force Commander Romeo Dallaire asking for an additional 5000 troops (denied), the mission was closed in 1996 and overall declared to be a failure. Members of the mission, though, have been recognized for their humanitarian efforts in saving lives and 27 members of UNAMIR also lost their lives in the conflict.

Answer: British Expeditionary Force

The British Expeditionary Force was the soldiers that were sent into France and Belgium in the First World War. First commanded by Sir John French, Sir Douglas Haig became the Commander-in-Chief in 1915. As the war went on longer than expected, the BEF divided into the First and Second Armies, with more divisions created later in the war, which some people consider meant the end of the original BEF, but the name was retained to represent the entirety of the British Army during the war.