World History MCQ Questions with Answer

Answer: (a)

Explanation: One of the oldest examples of a civil service based on meritocracy is the Imperial bureaucracy of China, which can be traced as far back as the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC). During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) the Xiaolin system of recommendation by superiors for appointments to the office was established. The civil service recruitment method and educational system employed from the Han dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) was abolished by the Ch’ing dowager empress Tz’uHsi in 1905 under pressure from leading Chinese intellectuals. The Sui dynasty (581–618) adopted this Han system and applied it in a much more systematic way as a method of official recruitment.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Abu Bakr was a senior companion (Sahabi) and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632–634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad’s death. As Caliph, Abu Bakr succeeded to the political and administrative functions previously exercised by Muhammad, since the religious function and authority of prophethood ended with Muhammad’s death according to Islam. He was called Al-Siddiq (The Truthful).

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Christopher Columbus completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World. Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century), Columbus’s voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas.

Answer : (b)

Explanation: Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is best known as the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. Its name means “Wide Island”.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Socialism lays more emphasis on the economic dimension of justice. Without economic justice, one cannot achieve the objectives of social and political justice. For economic justice, there should be sufficient production of essential goods. Basic necessities of life must be available to all. The aim of social justice is to protect the interest of minorities and eradicate poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy from society.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, and the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world. It is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: The Cold War, often dated from 1947 to 1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO among its allies and powers in the Eastern Block, dominated by the Soviet Union along with Warsaw Pact.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Swiss-born French political philosopher. He propounded ‘Social Contract Theory’ — that men were born free, but lived everywhere in chains. His ideas led to the French Revolution and the establishment of republics in different parts of the world. His Confessions was published after his death.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Battles of Wagram, Pyramids, and Austerlitz resulted in decisive victories for Napoleon. The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition (August– December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803– 1815). The battle was the most decisive British naval victory of the war.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: The Fabian Society is a British socialist organization whose purpose is to advance the principles of socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World War I.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794) was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of “enemies of the revolution.” Robespierre, a French lawyer, and politician was an important figure during the Reign of Terror, which ended a few months after his arrest and execution in July 1794.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Potato was brought to Europe from the New World by Spanish explorers. Sailors returning from the Andes to Spain with silver presumably brought maize and potatoes for their own food on the trip. Historians speculate that leftover tubers (and maize) were carried ashore and planted.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Marxian materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history. It was first articulated as the materialist conception of history in which changes in material conditions are the primary influence in the organization of society and economy. Darwin applied materialist philosophy to nature, while Marx-Engels applied it to history.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed by France’s National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, is a fundamental document of the French Revolution. It defines the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: The British Empire Economic Conference (Ottawa Conference) was a 1932 conference of British colonies and the autonomous dominions held to discuss the Great Depression. The meeting worked to establish a zone of limited tariffs within the British Empire, but with high tariffs with the rest of the world. This was called “Imperial preference.”

Answer: (b)

Explanation: The Indus Valley civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses which other Bronze Age civilizations lacked to the extent that the Indus people had. The Drainage System of the Indus Valley Civilization was quite advanced. The drains were covered with slabs. Water flowed from houses into the street drains. The street drains had manholes at regular intervals.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: The First World War involved all the world’s great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances:  the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). These alliances were both reorganized and expanded as more nations entered the war:  Italy, Japan, and the United States joined the Allies, and the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria the Central Powers.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: The Crimean War (October 1853–February 1856), also known as Eastern War, was fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: Modern Bangladesh came into being on March 26, 1971, when it proclaimed the Declaration of Independence from Pakistan. It was followed by Bangladesh-India Allied Forces defeating the Pakistan Army, culminating in its surrender and the Liberation of Dhaka on 16 December 1971. On 17 December 1971, the nation of Bangladesh was finally established.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Benito Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party, ruling the country from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of fascism, a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Originally a member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of the Avanti from 1912 to 1914, Mussolini fought in World War I as an ardent nationalist and created the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919, catalyzing his nationalist and socialist beliefs in the Fascist Manifesto, published in 1921.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. An Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, comprising an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blucher. It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon’s last.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Anti-Semitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. Social scientists consider it a form of racism. Anti-Semitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs, state police, or even military attacks on entire Jewish communities. Extreme instances of persecution include the pogroms which preceded the First Crusade in 1096, the expulsion from England in 1290, the massacres of Spanish Jews in 1391, the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Cossack massacres in Ukraine, various pogroms in Russia, the Dreyfus affair, the Final Solution by Hitler’s Germany, official Soviet anti-Jewish policies and the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox, was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought. He was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Merite for his exploits on the Italian front. In World War II, he further distinguished himself as the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. However, it was his leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign that established the legend of the Desert Fox. He is considered to have been one of the most skilled commanders of desert warfare in the conflict.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Most religious historians view Islam as having been founded in 622 CE by Muhammad the Prophet (peace be upon him). He lived from about 570 to 632 CE). The religion started in Mecca when the angel Jibril read the first revelation to Muhammad.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Karachi is the largest city, main seaport, and financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. By the time of the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Karachi was chosen as the capital of Pakistan, which at the time included modern-day Bangladesh. In 1958, the capital of Pakistan was moved from Karachi to Rawalpindi and then in 1960, to the newly built Islamabad.