100 Fun Facts About Modern History

The Wright brothers made the first controlled, powered flight in December 1903 near which town?

Their patent, filed months earlier, claimed not a flying machine but a system for controlling one.

The Titanic sank in April 1912 on a voyage from Southampton to where?

About 1,500 of the 2,208 aboard died on her maiden voyage.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914 in which city?

The Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip shot him and his wife Sophie at close range; the assassination lit the fuse of the First World War.

How many casualties did the British Army suffer on the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916?

Including 19,240 killed, the worst day in the British Army's history.

The Balfour Declaration of November 1917 was a letter from the British foreign secretary to whom?

It pledged support for a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with an Arab majority.

Who led the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution of 1917?

It was one stage of a wider Russian Revolution that ran on to 1923.

The 1918-1920 influenza pandemic is estimated to have killed at least how many people?

Estimates run from 17 to 50 million and possibly 100 million; the earliest probable cases were in Kansas, not Spain.

On what date was the Treaty of Versailles signed?

Exactly five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand's assassination.

Gandhi's 1930 march to Dandi was a protest against what?

The 24-day walk to Dandi ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930.

The Wall Street crash that began the Great Depression happened in which month and year?

The Depression is generally dated 1929 to 1939.

Which president introduced the phrase 'New Deal' when accepting his party's nomination in 1932?

The reforms ran from 1933 to 1938 after his landslide over Hoover.

The Weimar Republic ended in what year?

Germany's first constitutional republic ran from November 1918 to March 1933; Hitler had joined the tiny DAP in September 1919.

The Spanish Civil War was fought between the Republicans and which rebel side?

It ran from 1936 to 1939; the Soviet Union backed the Republic, Germany and Italy backed Franco.

Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against Jews, took place on which nights?

The SA and SS led it while the authorities looked on.

Which agreement, signed a week before Germany invaded Poland, carved up Eastern Europe with the USSR?

The invasion began on 1 September 1939.

How many Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 'a date which will live in infamy'.

Which World War II battle is considered the largest and deadliest urban battle in history?

It ran from July 1942 to February 1943 and ended with the Axis expelled from the Caucasus.

Which of the five D-Day beaches saw the highest casualties?

Its high cliffs did the damage; the seaborne assault was codenamed Operation Neptune.

The atomic bombs used in 1945 were designed at which laboratory?

Robert Oppenheimer directed it; Little Boy was a uranium gun-type bomb, Fat Man a plutonium implosion device.

On which two dates were atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

They killed 150,000 to 246,000 people and remain the only nuclear weapons used in war.

How many leading Nazis were tried by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945-46?

Six German organisations were tried alongside them; the four powers were France, the USSR, the UK and the US.

India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on which date in 1947?

The partition displaced 12 to 20 million people; viceroy Mountbatten had brought the date forward.

How much did the United States transfer to Western Europe under the Marshall Plan?

Seventeen countries shared the European Recovery Program money from 1948.

The Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 saw the Soviets cut off which access routes to West Berlin?

The Western Allies answered with an airlift that lasted until May 1949.

The People's Republic of China was proclaimed on which date?

It capped a revolution begun in 1927; Mao had risen to undisputed leadership during the Long March.

Along which line was Korea divided into occupation zones after 1945?

North Korea invaded across it on 25 June 1950; UN forces later pushed back to roughly the same line.

Who nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, prompting invasion by Britain, France and Israel?

Pressure from both the US and USSR forced the invaders out, and historians date the end of Britain's superpower status to the fiasco.

The Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957, created what?

Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed it; it took effect on 1 January 1958.

Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, was launched on which date?

Its beeps set off the Space Race and, in the U.S., a scramble to fund science education.

Aboard which spacecraft did Yuri Gagarin become the first person in space on 12 April 1961?

He completed one orbit; it was his only spaceflight.

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on which date?

It ringed West Berlin until 9 November 1989.

How many days did the Cuban Missile Crisis last?

16 to 28 October 1962; the Soviet missiles in Cuba matched U.S. missiles in Britain, Italy and Turkey.

Who shot Lee Harvey Oswald two days after the Kennedy assassination?

The Dallas nightclub owner fired on live television; the Warren Commission found no conspiracy.

Rosa Parks's 1955 refusal to give up her bus seat sparked a boycott in which city?

The Montgomery bus boycott made a young Martin Luther King Jr. a national figure.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination on which grounds?

It also banned segregation in schools and public accommodations.

Which 1964 naval episode led Congress to hand President Johnson broad war powers in Vietnam?

The war ended with the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.

The Cultural Revolution in China lasted from 1966 until what event?

Deng Xiaoping then steered the country toward a socialist market economy.

Which territories did Israel capture in the Six-Day War of June 1967?

East Jerusalem came with the West Bank; the war lasted 5 to 10 June.

Which forces invaded Czechoslovakia in late summer 1968 to end the Prague Spring?

Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary and Poland joined; Alexander Dubček's reforms had begun that January.

Who stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon?

Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969; the crew stayed more than 21 hours.

Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign on which date?

The Watergate break-in had happened two years earlier, in June 1972.

Which cleric replaced the Shah as Iran's supreme leader after the 1979 revolution?

He had been exiled in 1964 for attacking the Shah's White Revolution.

Solidarity was founded in 1980 at a shipyard in which city?

The Lenin Shipyard strike made electrician Lech Wałęsa famous.

Which unit exploded at Chernobyl on 26 April 1986?

It is one of only two accidents rated at the maximum level 7, alongside Fukushima in 2011.

The Berlin Wall fell on which date?

Weeks later Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, 17 to 28 November, toppled its communist government without violence.

Whose death in April 1989 triggered the Tiananmen Square protests?

The reformist former party chief; martial law was declared in late May and troops took the square on the night of 3 June.

To whom did Gorbachev transfer the Soviet nuclear launch codes when he resigned on 25 December 1991?

That evening the Soviet flag came down from the Kremlin for the last time.

How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison?

First on Robben Island, later Pollsmoor and Victor Verster; F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990 and he became president in 1994.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 is the founding treaty of what?

Twelve member states signed it, promising shared citizenship and a single currency.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 unfolded over roughly how many days?

Scholarly estimates put Tutsi deaths between 500,000 and 662,000; the constitution says over a million.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed on 10 April of which year?

It ended most of the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

On 11 September 2001, which building was hit by American Airlines Flight 77?

Flight 93, whose passengers fought back, was believed to be aimed at the Capitol or the White House.

Whose self-immolation in Tunisia set off the Arab Spring?

The street vendor's death in December 2010 set off protests across the Arab world.

What share of the vote did Leave win in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

The UK finally left at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020; the 1975 referendum had gone 67.2% for staying.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working where?

It opened to the public in 1993.

The COVID-19 pandemic began with an outbreak in which city in December 2019?

It reached the rest of Asia and then the world in early 2020.

Barack Obama, the first African American president, was which numbered US president?

He held office from 2009 to 2017.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 but did not enter into force until which year?

It extended the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

What codename covered the 1975 helicopter airlift of Americans out of Saigon as it fell?

US ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years earlier; Saigon fell to the North on 30 April 1975.

What nickname did Czechoslovakia's peaceful 1992 split into two countries earn?

The name echoes the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989; the dissolution took effect on 31 December 1992.

How many people did police records say were killed at Sharpeville, South Africa, in 1960?

About 5,000 people had gathered at the police station offering themselves for arrest for not carrying passbooks; 21 March is now Human Rights Day in South Africa.

How many days did the 1982 Falklands War last?

Argentina surrendered on 14 June 1982; 907 people were killed in the conflict.

Which leader of Hungary's 1956 uprising was tried and executed for treason in 1958?

He was buried in an unmarked grave; his ceremonial reburial in June 1989 helped bring down Hungary's communist regime.

What was the name of the Cuban exile force that landed at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961?

The CIA-financed unit was the armed wing of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front; Cubans know the battle as Playa Girón, after the beach.

For how many days were 52 Americans held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran?

Sixty-six people were seized on 4 November 1979; the last 52 were freed on 20 January 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

The 1917 Zimmermann telegram proposed a German military alliance with which country?

British codebreakers in Room 40 intercepted it; the offer included helping recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico from the United States.

Which Dublin building served as the rebel headquarters during the 1916 Easter Rising?

The rebels hoisted two republican flags over the building on O'Connell Street and read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside it.

Which U.S. president brokered the 1905 treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War?

The treaty was signed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the mediation made him the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Which general commanded the Viet Minh forces that besieged the French at Dien Bien Phu?

He had rehearsed the tactic in late 1952 by attacking the French air-supplied camp at Nà Sản; the 1954 defeat ended French rule in Indochina.

On what date did the Khmer Rouge capture Phnom Penh?

The capture ended the Cambodian Civil War; captured Khmer Republic soldiers were marched to the Olympic Stadium and executed.

More than how many Bosniak men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in July 1995?

The town had been declared a UN 'safe area'; international courts later ruled the killings a genocide.

The 1995 Bosnian War peace deal was negotiated at an air force base in which U.S. state?

The talks ran at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the deal is still known by the name of the nearby city, Dayton.

Who was the first prime minister of the independent Congo in 1960?

He held office only from June to September 1960 and was executed in January 1961, aged 35.

Which country in 1957 became the first colony in Sub-Saharan Africa to win independence?

Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party had campaigned under the motto 'self-government now' since 1949.

The Évian Accords of March 1962 ended France's war in which country?

A cease-fire took effect the next day, 19 March 1962, after nearly eight years of fighting.

Which general seized power in Chile on 11 September 1973, ending Salvador Allende's rule?

A 2000 U.S. intelligence review concluded the CIA did not instigate the coup but knew of the plotting and probably appeared to condone it.

How many seconds into its flight did Space Shuttle Challenger break apart in January 1986?

Record-low temperatures that morning had stiffened the rubber O-rings in the right solid rocket booster, which failed to seal.

Aboard which spacecraft did Valentina Tereshkova become the first woman in space in 1963?

The original plan had her launching first in Vostok 5 with Valentina Ponomaryova following; she flew solo on 16 June 1963.

What codename was given to the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, in July 1945?

The 'gadget' was an implosion-design plutonium bomb, the same design as the one dropped on Nagasaki three weeks later.

How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942?

Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, along with the heavy cruiser Mikuma, six months after Pearl Harbor.

On what date did Germany launch Operation Barbarossa, its invasion of the Soviet Union?

It was a Sunday; several of Germany's European Axis allies joined the assault.

The Battle of the Bulge was launched through which densely forested region?

The December 1944 offensive aimed to seize Antwerp and split the Allied lines; the Germans called it Wacht am Rhein.

Aboard which battleship did Japan formally sign its surrender on 2 September 1945?

About 250 other Allied vessels, including a Dutch hospital ship, were in Tokyo Bay for the ceremony.

How many original member countries did the United Nations have in 1945?

Fifty signed the Charter in San Francisco on 26 June 1945; Poland signed later, and the first General Assembly met in London that January.

How many states signed the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 to found NATO?

The treaty was signed in Washington on 4 April 1949; Portugal and Iceland were among the founders while West Germany only joined in 1955.

Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in April 1968 on the balcony of which Memphis motel?

He had checked into room 306 at about 11:20 that morning; James Earl Ray pleaded guilty the following year and was sentenced to 99 years.

How many students did the Ohio National Guard kill at Kent State in May 1970?

Nine more were wounded at the rally against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia; a presidential commission later called the shootings unjustified.

Which group carried out the attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics?

Eight gunmen took part; eleven Israelis and one West German police officer were killed.

How many people in total died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie?

All 259 aboard the Boeing 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas died, along with 11 residents of the Scottish town.

In which city did Rabin and Arafat publicly sign the first Oslo Accord in 1993?

The secret talks had been hosted in Norway by the Fafo institute; the famous handshake happened on the White House lawn.

In which city were Nicholas II and his family murdered in July 1918?

Bolsheviks under Yakov Yurovsky shot and stabbed the family in the Ipatiev House on the night of 16-17 July, on orders from the Ural Regional Soviet.

In which Pakistani city was Osama bin Laden killed in May 2011?

Operation Neptune Spear was launched from near Jalalabad in Afghanistan, about 120 miles away, with two dozen Navy SEALs in two Black Hawks.

On what date did Lehman Brothers file the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history?

The filing involved more than $600 billion in assets and sent the Dow down 4.5% in a day, then its worst drop since 9/11.

By roughly how many weeks did Amundsen beat Scott to the South Pole in 1911-12?

Amundsen's five-man party arrived on 14 December 1911; Scott's Terra Nova party reached the pole in January and died on the return journey.

Roughly how many kilometres long was the Baltic Way human chain of 23 August 1989?

About two million people linked hands across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the 50th anniversary of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact that had carved up the region.

In which Romanian town were the Ceaușescus tried and executed on 25 December 1989?

Their escape helicopter had set down on the Bucharest road after the pilot claimed anti-aircraft fire; a passing driver then turned them in.

Nixon's 1972 Beijing trip ended how many years without official U.S.-China ties?

He was the first sitting U.S. president to visit the People's Republic; full normalisation only came under Jimmy Carter in 1979.

Which company's pesticide plant leaked methyl isocyanate gas over Bhopal, India, in 1984?

More than 500,000 people were exposed on 3 December 1984 in what is considered the world's worst industrial disaster; the parent company paid $470 million in 1989.

The 1976 Soweto uprising began as a protest against teaching in which language?

School children marched on 16 June 1976 against a 1974 decree forcing black schools to use the 'language of the oppressor'; the date is now Youth Day.

Which March 1918 agreement took Russia out of the First World War?

A supplementary protocol that August required Russia to pay Germany six billion marks in reparations; the treaty was signed in what is now Brest, Belarus.