Achieve Victory With This World War II Quiz

Charlie Chaplin once said, “To me, the funniest thing in the world is to ridicule impostors. It would be hard to find a bigger impostor than Hitler." In September 1939, the comedian brought that sentiment to life when he began filming “The Great Dictator” — just six days after his native U.K. declared war on Germany. He was the writer, star, and director.

In 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of China’s ruling KMT party. Twelve years later, he fought off a Japanese invasion for four years during the Sino-Japanese War, and in 1941, the Allies — except the USSR — joined his cause in declaring war on Japan. Two years after combining forces with the Allies, Chiang met Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Cairo Conference to issue a declaration of the goal to strip Japan of all seized territories and also restore Korean independence.

The word “quisling” came to mean “traitor” because of Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian politician who met with Hitler in 1939 and urged him to invade Norway. The following year, Hitler occupied the country and Quisling proclaimed himself the president of Norway. After his regime collapsed in 1942, Quisling was named minister president under a Nazi commissioner. Three years later, the politician was executed.

The pro-Axis French government that formed in 1940 is known as “Vichy France” because it operated from the spa town of Vichy. Its leader was Philippe Pétain, who was considered a national hero after his service in World War I. However, Vichy France cooperated with the Nazis in sending Jews to concentration camps, and absolute authoritarianism was enforced. Vichy France was abolished in 1944 after Paris was liberated.

Rationing during World War II forced banana-loving Brits to consider some unusual alternatives. Supply cutoffs limited imported food, and by November 1940, Britain banned the tropical fruit. Home cooks were forced to get imaginative: A popular recipe by Marguerite Patten, a chef famed for her ration-book-approved substitutions, made mock bananas by boiling and mashing parsnips, then flavoring the result with banana extract.

Of the celebrities listed above, Bing Crosby is the only one who did not complete military service during World War II. The singer did, however, entertain the troops on tour with the United Services Organization (USO), and was applauded for boosting morale.

In March 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento (“Fighting Bands”), a right-wing organization named after 19th-century peasant groups. Two years later, he formed the Italian Partito Nazionale (“National Fascist Party”) and took power in Italy as dictator. The period of 1922 to 1942, when Mussolini and the National Fascist Party ruled, is known as the “ventennio fascista” (“20 fascist years”). The political party was dissolved in 1943 after Mussolini was deposed.

The Battle of Midway was one of the most important Pacific campaigns during World War II. The Japanese were expected to win due to their sheer numbers, but American troops eventually succeeded in fending them off. The battle marked a turning point in America’s campaign against Japan in the Pacific.

The Battle of the Atlantic began the same day World War II officially started in 1939, and did not end until Germany's surrender in 1945. It is the name given to the continuous struggle to control the Atlantic Ocean during the war, with Canada often playing a key role in helping to support the Allied powers.

During the war, paper clips were worn by Oslo University students as a stealthy way to declare resistance against the Nazis. Some students wore them on their lapels; others strung them together to make bracelets. You may never look at that little piece of bent metal the same way again.

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Allied powers’ overarching invasion plan, which was meant to establish a large-scale presence on the European continent. Operation Neptune, meanwhile, was the code name for the assault phase, which included the amphibious invasion known colloquially as D-Day.

Nickel was in such demand during the war that the U.S. Congress came up with a plan to save around 827 pounds of nickel by changing the composition of 5-cent coins. From 1942 to 1945, nickels were made of 56% copper, 35% silver, and 9% manganese. (Prior to that, they were 75% copper and 25% nickel.) This also helped morale by showing the mint’s dedication to the war.

In 1945, before she became Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Windsor joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territory Service, where she trained to be an auto mechanic and serviced jeeps and ambulances to aid the war effort. The newspapers were thrilled, and referred to her as “Princess Auto Mechanic.”

On September 8, 1941, the German army sealed off the northern city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Its destruction was one of Hitler’s goals, and the death toll over the next couple of years was astronomical. The Soviet army finally managed to free the city with more than 1,600 tanks in early 1944.

In 1945, U.S. soldier Kurt Vonnegut saw the Allied firebombing of Dresden while he was a POW of the Germans. In 1969, he published “Slaughterhouse-Five,” a seriocomic anti-war novel that reimagines the traumatic experience in the life of a soldier who meets aliens that teach him to be fatalistic about time and death. In 2005, “TIME” named it one of the 100 best novels in English since 1923.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a training program for Black aviators, known as the “Tuskegee Experiment.” In 1942, the Tuskegee-trained 99th Pursuit Squadron was deployed to North Africa, and then later to Italy, where they were joined by additional squadrons to form the 332nd Fighter group, nicknamed the "Tuskegee Airmen."

Chips the dog was a member of the U.S. Army’s K-9 Corps, which was founded in 1942 in the middle of World War II. The shepherd-collie-husky mix was trained to locate explosives, deliver supplies and messages, and sniff out where the enemy might be hiding. Though Chips was awarded the Purple Heart for his heroism, the military later decided that animals are ineligible for such awards.

He might not be as well known as Mussolini or Hitler, but Tōjō Hideki was the third major leader of the Axis Powers during World War II. The strict way he ran the military, his precision, and his intense attention to detail earned him the nickname "Razor Tojo."

In the 1940s, the national speed limit in the U.S. was set to 35 mph to conserve tire rubber for the war effort. Rubber was rationed after the Japanese took control of plantations that provided 90% of America’s rubber supply. Conserving rubber became a nationwide priority, so much so that even Daffy Duck encouraged folks to mind the Victory Speed and “Keep it under 40!”

Famed chef Julia Child was stationed in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1944. The OSS was the U.S. intelligence agency that coordinated espionage activities behind enemy lines, a predecessor to the CIA. Child hoped to join the Women’s Army Corps, but at six-foot-two, she was too tall for the job. Julia did, however, meet her future husband during her time in the OSS.

Neville Chamberlain enjoyed a lengthy political career in the United Kingdom, entering the House of Commons in 1918 and serving several terms as chancellor of the Exchequer before being elected prime minister in 1937. With the rise of fascism in Europe, Chamberlain decided that a "policy of appeasement" was in order, preferring to avoid conflict. He resigned in 1940, and was succeeded by Winston Churchill, who went on to be a strong leader in the conflict to come.

The Blitz — aerial bombing attacks on Britain — began in London on September 7, 1940. The government initially discouraged citizens from using the Underground train stations as shelter, but their sentiments didn’t dissuade people, and whole families gathered in the stations. Eventually, the government saw the benefit of people hiding in the tunnels and provided provisions such as food, tea, lavatories, and entertainment.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was a hard loss for the United States, although the Japanese failed to disarm the American fleet. A massive effort was made by the U.S. Navy to resurrect the ships that were sunk in the attack, and many of the ships went on to fight in the war. Today, the USS Arizona and USS Utah are the only battleships still underwater.

To make sure “Saving Private Ryan” was an accurate movie, director Steven Spielberg made the actors attend boot camp, used photos from the 1940s as inspiration, and devoted 15% of the film's budget to the opening D-Day scene. It worked: Combat vets said it was so accurate, they had a hard time watching the film due to flashbacks.

In February 1945, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the USSR met in Yalta, a resort city on the Soviet Crimean Peninsula. In what became known as the Yalta Conference, the “Big Three” discussed the postwar division of Europe (including the partition of Germany), the ongoing war in the Pacific, and the formation of the new United Nations.

D-Day, the day on which the Allied forces invaded the beaches of Normandy, is considered one of the most strategically important battles that American troops took part in during World War II. It is still the largest amphibious invasion undertaken in military history.

The German army tried to conquer a mind-boggling amount of land during World War II, including Norway, Greece, and Yugoslavia (the modern-day Balkans), as well as Poland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and more. However, Portugal was able to remain neutral and uninvaded throughout the war.

At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Allied leaders Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin decided they would divide Germany into four occupation zones, run by their nations as well as France. They also divided the capital, Berlin, creating the preconditions for the eventual erection of the Berlin Wall.

World War II pitted the Allied powers (led by the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union) against the Axis powers. The “Axis” was originally formed between Nazi Germany and Italy in 1936, and Japan was added to the alliance later that year. Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Croatia also fought for the Axis powers.

Winston Churchill gave his now-famous “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech to British Parliament on July 4, 1940. However, few people actually heard this speech until after the war ended, since broadcasting and recording equipment were not allowed in the House of Commons at the time.