Flagging It Up Trivia Quiz

Answer: World War II

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the United States formally entered World War II on the side of the Allies and against the Japanese-German-Italian Axis. The war in the Pacific theatre did not go well for the Americans in the beginning and the Japanese made significant headway, hopping from island to island. However, in the latter stages of the war, the Americans were able to turn things around and began reconquering the lost territory.

The battle for Iwo Jima started on February 19, 1945. It was considered an important island to take in the Pacific and the United States placed a lot of emphasis on retaking it. Nevertheless, the island had very little strategic importance to the war. After a long and bloody battle, Mount Suribachi was taken and an American flag was raised on February 23, 1945. The battle for the island would actually continue until March 26.

The photograph of the second flag-raising would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize that very same year and became one of the best-known photographs of the war.

Answer: Soviet Union

The Soviet Union were pushing west quickly in the final stage of World War II. By February of 1945 they were already at the outskirts of Berlin where Adolph Hitler had his bunker and final defence. The Germans hastily set up some defences and the Soviets made careful plans on how to take the city. The offensive started on April 16, 1945.

After the Soviets systematically took over Berlin, Hitler and several top-ranking Nazis committed suicide on April 30. A few more days of fighting continued but the Germans capitulated on May 2, 1945. The famous photo was taken that day by Yevgeny Khaldei of Soviet soldiers raising their flag on the Reichstag over a war-torn city symbolizing the end of the war for Germany and the Allied victory. The Soviets would hold onto Berlin as well as East Germany until 1989 when the Berlin Wall started to come down.

Answer: Spain

The Spanish-American War of 1898 went on for approximately ten weeks. The United States entered into an armed conflict shortly after Cuba declared its independence from Spain. This war established American naval dominance, especially since the conflict itself occurred mostly at sea.

At the end of the war, the Treaty of Paris gave the United States control of Spanish territories like Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. This was ironic since Spain had just, the year before, given the Puerto Ricans self-governance. The Americans attempted to integrate the new territory of Puerto Rico into the country, for example, giving full citizenship to all islanders in 1917. However, a nationalist movement always existed and this hampered the efforts. In 2020, however, a national survey showed that a slim majority of the locals want to be awarded statehood as the 51st State.

Answer: A sheet, ink, and a first aid kit

Late in the Israeli War of Independence, the Israelis launched Operation Uvda, a thrust to the south to get to the Red Sea. When they reached Umm Rashrash, near the Jordanian city of Aqaba, they realized that they had achieved their objective without a fight. However, nobody in the entire brigade had an Israeli flag to raise.

Brigadier General Nahum Sarig ordered an improvised flag to be flown. A white sheet was procured and soldiers used blue ink to make the two horizontal stripes on the flag. A Star of David was torn off of a medic's kit and sewn in the middle. The flag became known as the 'Ink Flag' and a picture resembling the famous Iwo Jima picture was taken. While the flag raising became an iconic moment for the Israelis, the flag itself was lost after the war.

Answer: South China Sea

The ownership of the islands in the South China Sea have been disputed for over a century. The Spratly Islands, Senkaku Islands, Paracel Islands and other land masses have been claimed by China, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei.

The problem started at the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 and has been a sore spot ever since. What may have been just fishing disputes was compounded in 1976 when the Philippines were the first to discover a massive oil field off the coast of Palawan Island. Since then, belligerents, mainly China, have been trying to gain the upper hand in the area both diplomatically and with the use of military force.

The 2012 flag-raising incident was just one of many conflicts over the years over the islands in the South China Sea.

Answer: The Moon

The Moon has always been a heavenly destination that has been just within reach. The Cold War saw the two main powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, race for space supremacy by attempting to be first at everything. The Soviets were the first to get a man into space, and, after several botched launches and one near miss, they crashed the Luna 2 probe onto the surface of the moon. Lunar impact was made on September 13, 1959. One of the objects that the probe was carrying in its titanium containers was a Soviet flag, the first to reach the moon's surface.

Ten years later, the Eagle lunar module landed on the surface of the Moon. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed and began to explore. One of the activities they did was to plant an American flag on the Moon.

On April 19, 2019, the Israeli Beresheet probe crash-landed on the surface of the Moon after a botched landing. One of the objects that got scattered at the crash site was an Israeli flag. The Chinese lander Chang'e 5 made a soft landing on the Moon on December 1, 2020. The probe placed a Chinese flag on the Moon's surface, making it the fourth national flag to reach Earth's largest satellite.

Answer: Morocco

Western Sahara has long been a region seeped in turmoil. The nationalist movement came around long before the Spanish withdrew from the region and was partly the reason for their withdrawal. However, when the Moroccan forces began streaming in from the north in early November 1975, the Spanish withdrew unilaterally on November 14.

Morocco has since then claimed the region for their own. However, the nationalist Polisaro made themselves a stronghold on the inland part of the region and a sand wall was built between the two forces. Despite some United Nations interventions, the politics of Western Sahara remain volatile.

Answer: Russia

On August 7, 2007, two Russian miniature submarines, the "Mir-1" and "Mir-2", went down to the sea bed underneath the northern polar ice cap and planted a Russian flag at the Earth's North Pole. Despite years of diplomatic negotiations over the status of the region and the extent of the extension of territorial waters, the Russians managed to irk the normally polite Canadians very deeply.

The action also angered other countries with competing claims to the Arctic region, such as the United States, Denmark (which represents Greenland), and Norway. Canada felt particularly slighted because it also claims sovereignty over the Arctic, including the waters around the North Pole. While the flag-planting itself was a symbolic gesture, Russia used it to reinforce its stance on territorial rights to the Arctic seabed, which includes access to potentially lucrative natural resources. The act sparked a broader international debate about the future of the Arctic, particularly as global warming has opened up new shipping routes and made resource extraction more feasible.

Answer: He thought it was an island

Probably the main reason that Columbus never got the credit for discovering a new continent was that, to his dying day, Columbus insisted that he had set foot on some islands. When he landed on Venezuela on August 1, 1498, during his third visit to the New World, he planted a flag on the mainland at the delta of the Orinoco River, and called it Isla Santa.

What?!

Christopher Columbus thought that the Orinoco River was the opening to the Garden of Eden and that the land that he had stepped on was an island. He planted a flag in the name of Spain, but deemed the place too insignificant to explore further.

Answer: Argentina

On March 19, 1982, some Argentine merchants (with help from Argentine Marines) raised the flag on South Georgia Island. This was the spark that caused the British and the Argentines to nearly go to a formal war over these islands whose population was in the low thousands.

Argentina mounted an invasion on April 2, 1982, on the Falkland Islands, which was met with little resistance, probably due to the distance of these islands from Great Britain. However, the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, decided to respond with force. After armed conflicts where lives were lost on both sides, the British retained their ownership over these islands, much to the Argentinian dislike.