World History MCQ Questions with Answer

Answer: (b)

Explanation: One of the most important and controversial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war and, under War Guilt clauses to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay heavy reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was the compromise that left none contented:  Germany was not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened. This would prove to be a factor leading to World War II.

Answer:​(a) ​

Explanation: Three phases of Japan are: ​​

1. 1853-1867: Period of slavery
2. ​​1868-1894: Rise of Modern Japan ​​
3. 1894-1910: World Power

Answer: (a)

Explanation: A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It was followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The twin bombings led to Japan’s surrender in the Second War.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957. Alaska became the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. The Sino-Pakistan Agreement (also known as the Sino-Pakistan Frontier Agreement and Sino-Pak Boundary Agreement) is a 1963 document between the governments of Pakistan and China WORLD HISTORY SGAE–188 establishing the border between those countries. On 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe stroke that left him gravely ill. He died at his London home nine days later, at age 90, on the morning of Sunday 24 January 1965.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: The discovery of human antiquity was a major achievement of science in the middle of the 19th century, and the foundation of scientific paleoanthropology. Charles Darwin established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin’s work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. In 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Herodotus has been called the “Father of History”, and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his “inquiry”, being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information.

Answer:​ (b)

Explanation: The term Renaissance literally means “rebirth” or “revival”.  It also refers to the significant changes that took place in Europe during the transition period between the medieval and modern.  It led to the progress of science, art, architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, geography, and religion, and also the Spirit of individualism and humanism.  The religious transformation was symbolized by the Reformation.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Cold War:  undeclared and silent war between the USA and the former Soviet Union which ended with the fall of Berlin Wall and disintegration of the USSR; Holy War:  The Crusades of 11th, 12th, and 13th-century were religious wars led with an exceptionally high grade of religious feeling; The Long March:  a military retreat is undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China under Mao Tse-Tung to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army.; and Russia:  Revolution of 1917.

Answer: (b)

Explanation:  Marco polo (1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant traveller. He extensively travelled to China, India, and other parts of Asia.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: John Locke in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 6, said that the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. According to him, in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Answer:​(a) ​

Explanation: The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way.  More was created in the last 250+ years than in the previous 2500+ years of known human history.  The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.  It began in Great Britain and within a few decades had spread to Western Europe and the United States.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: The practice of worshipping sacrificial fire or ‘Yajna’ was common to the Aryans, the population of Greece and Rome, and the Iranians. The antiquity of the belief and reverential practice of the sacred fire was common among people of the Mediterranean, and the Iranian plateau, and the peninsula of India.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: Prof. Ramsay Muir describes the cabinet as “the steering wheel of the ship of state”. Ramsay Muir was a British historian and thinker who made a significant contribution to the development of liberal political philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s.

Answer:​(d)

Explanation: ​Helsinki Agreement (1975)  was signed by Brezhnev from USSR and Gerald Ford from the US along with Canada and many European nations (totalling 35 signatory nations).  Here Russia promised to respect Human Rights, the Right to Speech, and the Right to leave the country in the communist states.  The member nations recognized the existing frontiers in Europe (and thus accepted the division of Germany).  But the accord was non-binding as it did not have treaty status.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. It is the world’s smallest republic, covering just 21 square kilometres. With 9,378 residents, it is the second least-populated country after Vatican City.

Answer: (b)

Explanation: For Aristotle, the basic unit of association is the household, the next is the village, and the ultimate association is the city, toward which end humans, seeking to attain the highest quality of life, naturally move. Aristotle concludes, “Man is by nature a political animal.” Only as part of a city can people fully realize their nature; separated from the city, they are worse than animals.

Answer: ​(b) ​

Explanation: The Baghdad Pact was signed which brought Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan into a military alliance with the US.  When Iraq, left the Baghdad Pact after a revolution that overthrew the monarchy, the Baghdad Pact was renamed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).  These military alliances were used to support many undemocratic regimes in Asia.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer who discovered the sea route to India from Europe through the Cape of Good Hope. He was successful in crossing the Indian Ocean and anchored off the city of Calicut, India, on May 20, 1498.

Answer:​(d) ​

Explanation: Maximilian Robespierre was the leader of the Jacobins.  They practiced a policy of severe control and repression.  Those suspected as the enemies of the republic were arrested, imprisoned, and then tried by a revolutionary tribunal.  They imposed a maximum ceiling on wages and prices.  Meat and bread were rationed.  Peasants were forced to sell their grain at the prices fixed by the government.  Churches were shut down and their buildings converted into barracks or offices.  All citizens were required to eat the pain legality (equality bread) and discard the use of expensive white flour.

Answer:​(c) ​

Explanation: This Battle was fought in the air between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air force of Britain.  It is crucial because it was a turning point and served as the first defeat for Germany.  Although Britain served a huge loss of infrastructure in its cities due to the bombing by the Luftwaffe, yet Germany could not defeat the British Air force.  Germany lost 1400 aeroplanes while Britain lost only 700.  The answer to why Britain won the war lies in the early warning of the aeroplanes given by the British Radar stations.  Also, German Airplanes focused on bombing London and during this, the British airfields got time to mobilize the air force.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion, Greek and Roman mythology, and Greco– Roman Neo-paganism. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. As the patron of Delphi, Apollo was an oracular god— the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague.

Answer:​(d) ​

Explanation: 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor of France.  He set out to conquer neighbouring European countries, dispossessing dynasties and creating kingdoms where he placed members of his family.  Napoleon saw his role as a modernizer of Europe.  He introduced many rules such as the protection of private properties and a uniform system of weights and measures provided by the decimal system.  Initially many saw Napoleon as a liberator who would bring freedom for the people.  But soon the Napoleonic armies came to be viewed everywhere as an invading force.  He was finally defeated at waterloo in 1815.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back to ancient Greece. In The Republic, Plato emphasized the need for the absolute and unlimited authority of a philosopher-king in an ideal state. There were a number of influences on fascism from the Renaissance era in Europe. Niccolo Machiavelli is known to have influenced Italian Fascism, particularly his promotion of the absolute authority of the state. Machiavelli rejected all existing traditional and metaphysical assumptions of the time— especially those associated with the Middle Ages and asserted as an Italian patriot that Italy needed a strong and all-powerful state led by a vigorous and ruthless leader who would conquer and unify Italy. Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was “an enthusiastic exponent of evolution” and even, “wrote about evolution before Darwin did.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Peking (Beijing) is the sacred place of Confucianism. It was founded by King Fu Tsu, better known as Confucius, in 500 BC. Its sacred text is ‘The Analects’.

Answer: (a)

Explanation: The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, and is composed in the Avestan language. The word Zend literally meaning “interpretation”, refers to late Middle Persian language paraphrases of and commentaries on the individual Avestan books:  they could be compared with the Jewish Targums.