Where did this Happen?: 1940s Edition Quiz

Answer: France

The Lascaux Cave is located near Montignac in the Dordogne region of France. Several versions of how the cave and its ancient art was found have been told over the years (one of which involves a dog getting lost in it), but the initial discovery is generally credited to a French teenager named Marcel Ravidat. The walls of the cave complex are covered in thousands of drawings of people, animals and symbols and are largely painted in black, red and yellow pigments. The content and style of the paintings has led experts to date them to the Magdalenian period of the Upper Palaeolithic era, which began around 17,000 years ago.

The cave was opened to the public in 1948 but had to be closed again 15 years later after the number of visitors resulted in changes to its atmosphere that caused significant deterioration of the paintings. It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Answer: Soviet Union

From August 1939 to June 1941, the Soviet Union, led by Josef Stalin, had a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. That treaty was violated when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa and committed millions of soldiers and a vast array of military equipment to the invasion of the western Soviet Union. This move opened the Eastern Front in Europe, added the Soviet Union to the list of Allied nations and resulted in years of deadly conflict when the invasion stalled and a bitter battle of attrition began.

Losses were not just restricted to the armed forces on either side - although there is some dispute over the numbers, it has been estimated that over 20 million Soviet civilians died as a direct result of the war.

Answer: Egypt

El Alamein is a town on Egypt's Mediterranean coastline that was located on an important railway supply line during the Second World War. The First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942 had ended in stalemate but had prevented the Axis forces commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (otherwise known as the Desert Fox) from advancing towards Cairo and the Suez Canal. The Second Battle of El Alamein was launched on October 23, 1942 and over the course of the next three weeks secure an Allied victory against the over-stretched and under-resourced German and Italian armies.

The victory at El Alamein provided an important morale boost for both the Allied forces and people back home, as up to that point the war had been progressing in Germany's favour. Winston Churchill, the British war-time prime minister, later wrote that "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat".

Answer: United States of America

A zoot suit is a suit consisting of a long wide-shouldered jacket, paired with baggy trousers that taper in at the ankles. They were popular with teenagers and young men from black and other ethnic minority communities in the USA in the 1940s.

The Zoot Suit Riots occurred in the city of Los Angeles and mainly consisted of violence against young Mexican-American men by members of the white community and the armed forces. While essentially racially motivated, the riots also occurred because the zoot suits worn by the victims flouted US rationing policies banning clothing that used excessive amounts of fabric.

Answer: The Netherlands

The famous diarist Anne Frank lived with her parents Otto and Edith and her older sister Margot in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands for the majority of her tragically short life. She was born in Germany but moved to Amsterdam after the Nazi Party came to power and began implementing anti-Jewish policies. After the German occupation of the Netherlands began in 1942, the Frank family was forced into hiding, an experience which the young teenager movingly recorded in her diary that was published after the war under the title of 'Diary of a Young Girl'.

The Frank family spent just over two years in hiding, until they were discovered during a police raid on August 4, 1944. The entire family was deported to Auschwitz, where Frank's mother died. Anne and Margot were moved to Bergen-Belsen and died there in 1945. Only Otto Frank survived the war, giving him the opportunity to publish his daughter's war-time diary and ensure that her name and story would never be forgotten.

Answer: Japan

The European portion of the Second World War ended with the German surrender on May 8, 1945 - a date celebrated as Victory in Europe (VE) Day. However, the Japanese continued to fight on for several months, prompting the USA to drop two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After receiving such a clear signal of their defeat, the Japanese surrendered on August 15 (Victory over Japan Day, or V-J Day) and the formal agreement of this was signed just over two weeks later on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Answer: Greece

The Greek monarchy had a somewhat unstable history from its initial establishment in 1832 until its demise in 1973. The first Greek monarch, a young German prince who was crowned King Otto I, was deposed in 1862 and replaced the following year by a young Danish prince. The monarchy then passed twice from father to son, before King George II was deposed in 1924. A referendum restored him to the throne in 1935 although he spent most of the Second World War in exile in Britain before his continued kingship was confirmed by the 1946 vote. He died the following year and was succeeded by his son.

The final Greek monarch, King George II's grandson King Constantine II took the throne in 1964 but fled into exile in 1967 after a military junta took control of the government. He was finally removed as king after yet another referendum in 1973 voted to abolish the monarchy.

Answer: Pakistan

The Partition of India in August 1947 split the former British territory into two independent nations on religious lines. The Hindu dominated areas became India, while the Muslim majority areas in the north-west (including the western part of the Punjab) and East Bengal became a new nation named Pakistan. While both nations gained independence, the process was marred by the displacement of huge numbers of both Hindus and Muslims living on the wrong side of the new border and mass violence that led to the loss of many hundreds of thousands of lives.

East Bengal eventually declared its independence from Pakistan in 1971 and became known as Bangladesh - although it had to fight a Liberation War before its new status was fully recognised.

Answer: United Kingdom

The UK's National Health Service was the world's first essentially free healthcare system for a country's citizens and was introduced by Labour's Health Minister, Aneurin Bevan. While the idea is largely credited to Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government, plans for the NHS were discussed at a pre-war Labour Party conference and initial legislation was proposed by the Conservative MP Henry Willink. The main difference between the Conservative and Labour proposals was that the Conservative Party favoured a locally run system whereas the Labour Party wanted truly nationally-owned healthcare.

Although several elements requiring payment were introduced (for example prescription and dentistry charges), the general principle of free healthcare laid down for the NHS in 1948 survived into the 21st century.

Answer: Italy

The Basilica di Superga, situated on a hill on the outskirts of the Italian city of Turin, was the site of a devastating air crash in 1949 when a plane crashed into its back wall during a period of poor visibility. The plane, which was carrying the Torino F.C. team back to the city from a friendly match in Portugal, was completely destroyed on impact and there were no survivors among the 31 passengers and crew on board.

The disaster resonated throughout Italy as the Torino team - known as the 'Grande Torino' - were the reigning Serie A champions who had won five back-to-back titles. The team's players also formed the majority of the Italian national football side and without these stars of the game, a much-weakened Italy failed to advance from the first round at the 1950 World Cup.