You And What Army? Trivia Quiz

Answer: 30 April 1975

Having crushed their last major opposition, the North Vietnamese readied for their final assault on South Vietnam. In Saigon, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned and Vice President Tran Van Huong was given power. Nguyen fled the city on April 25. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon. Tran served for only one day, with power then going to General Duong Van Minh.

When they attacked at dawn on April 30, they met very little resistance. North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace and the war came to an end.

North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin accepted the surrender from Gen. Duong Van Minh. Tin told him, "You have nothing to fear. Between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been beaten. If you are patriots, consider this a moment of joy. The war for our country is over."

Answer: The Great Patriotic War

The Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941 was the beginning of one of the most titanic wars in the history of the world. The war ended in complete defeat for Nazi Germany less than four years later on May 9, 1945. Over twenty million Soviet civilians and soldiers died in the interim period as they struggled to liberate the Motherland from the grasp of the Nazis.

Answer: concern for medical students and requests from other countries

Problems between the US and Grenada began when Grenada experienced a coup which placed Maurice Bishop in power as the Prime Minister in 1979. This had led to strengthened ties between Grenada and communist nations like Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Bishop was eventually murdered in October of 1983 during a power struggle with hardliners in his own movement. This, in turn, helped to create a breakdown in civil order that threatened the lives of American medical students who were living on the island. In response, the U.S. launched "Operation Urgent Fury", with the Marines sent to the north of the island and the Army Rangers to the south.

Other Caribbean nations had asked for U.S. intervention, as they feared the possibility of growth of communism in the region. The Americans were able to take control of the island by mid-December, despite unexpected resistance from some communist sympathizers on the island.

Answer: The United States supported and trained the Mujahadeen

The mujahadeen found other support from a variety of nations including the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt as well as among some of their fellow Muslim nations.

(U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001 as the US military's "Operation Enduring Freedom". The British military assisted the U.S. in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. Since 2002, the U.K. has led its own military operation, "Operation Herrick", as part of the same war in Afghanistan and as of 2010 the Afghan conflict is still ongoing).

At the risk of sounding "un-American" (which I am NOT), I feel that it should be pointed out that U.S. policies have sometimes led to such ironic twists, as have the actions/reactions of many other nations as well.

Answer: Korea

The 38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Reunification negotiations continued in the months before the Korean War began, but tensions steadily grew. Cross-border raids and small probes at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. An armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. This was the first significant ARMED conflict of the Cold War.

Many of the military and political errors made during this conflict were a prelude to what would later occur in the divided nation of Vietnam.

Answer: The Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, France

The treaty was presented to the German representatives on May 7, 1919 and the terms were harsh. Germany was stripped of about 15% of its pre-war home territory and of all of its overseas possessions. The size of Germany's military forces was drastically reduced. The treaty further stated that Germany would pay for the war's destruction through annual reparation payments to its European neighbors. The victors ignored the bitter complaints of the German delegation and refused to negotiate.
(Later, the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, was occupied by French and Belgian troops, after an alleged default on reparations).

Just over ten years later, additional burdens of the worldwide Great Depression triggered the collapse of the German republic in 1930-1933.

Enter Adolf Hitler. You know the rest ...

Answer: 3

In the 20th century the United States had directly intervened militarily in Nicaragua three times; 1909-10, 1912-25, and 1926-33, and once indirectly, 1981-89.

Nicaragua first gained importance to the United States as a possible canal route through Central America. However, with the construction of the Panama Canal, that concern lifted, but economic and security issues remained.

The four men who were president at the times of military actions in Nicaragua were Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan, who of course was the "indirect" source of intervention in the 1980s through the illegal funneling of funds to anti-Sandinista forces in what became known as the Iran/Contra Affair in 1986.

Answer: Camp O'Donnell

Camp O'Donnell was a former Philippine army post that had been abandoned because it could not provide enough water for even 5,000 men. It became known among the captives as "Hell-Hole Number 1."

After the Death March, more than 54,000 exhausted American and Filipino captives suffering from disease, hunger, and thirst were forced into it. In the beginning, 170 Americans and Filipinos died daily; a number that soon increased to 500 per day. In a nine month period, 40,000 prisoners perished. The only food made available to the prisoners was a "soup" or gruel, filled with partially rotten rice and vegetables that was barely fit to feed animals. The only water available for captives to drink or wash with was contaminated from the latrines.

Answer: Belgium

When World War I began, Germany invaded Belgium and Luxembourg as part of the Schlieffen Plan to invade France. It was this action that prompted the British to enter the war. The Belgians are remembered for their stubborn resistance during the early days of the war, with an army of about a tenth the size of the Germany Army holding up the German offensive for nearly a month.

Flanders saw some of the greatest losses of life of the First World War including the first and second battles of Ypres. Due to the hundreds of thousands of casualties, (and the poem written by Dr. John McCrae as he saw the dying soldiers all around him), poppies that sprang up from the battlefield became a symbol of human life lost in war.

The poem reads as follows:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

"In Flanders Fields", was first published in "Punch" in 1915.

Answer: 15

On 27 April 1945, Mussolini, his mistress, (Clara Petacci), several RSI ministers, and some other Fascists were caught while attempting to flee. On 28 April 1945, most of the captives were shot at Mezzegra and Dongo by Italian partisans. Fifteen of the bodies were taken to Piazza Loreto in Milan and hung upside down in front of a gas station.