Decolonization
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50 free Decolonization trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In the three decades after the Second World War, empires that had taken centuries to build came apart. Dozens of new flags went up across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, some after negotiation and a midnight ceremony, others after years of boycott, uprising or war. Decolonization redrew the world map faster than anything before it. This quiz covers the independence movements and the people who led them: the campaigns against British rule in India, the wars France fought in Indochina and Algeria, the end of the Portuguese and Dutch empires, and the wave of African independence that followed. It also reaches back to the first anti-colonial revolutions in the Americas and forward to the last handovers at the end of the twentieth century. Expect leaders, turning points, famous speeches, conferences and the new names countries chose for themselves. It suits students revising world history, teachers who want a ready-made review, and anyone curious about how today's countries came to be. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which commodity did Mahatma Gandhi walk 240 miles in 1930 to make illegally, defying a British monopoly?
Salt
Salt was a British monopoly under an 1882 law, so when Gandhi boiled seawater at Dandi he set off civil disobedience by millions of Indians.
Q 02Which territory's 1997 handover to China ended 156 years of British rule there?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong changed hands at midnight on 1 July 1997, after Prince Charles read a farewell speech on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
Q 03Which former British colony left Malaysia in 1965, less than two years after joining it?
Singapore
Singapore became a sovereign state on 9 August 1965, and Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew fought back tears at the televised press conference announcing the split.
Q 04Which European country annexed the Congo in 1908 from its own king's private rule and governed it until 1960?
Belgium
Belgium took over reluctantly, after public pressure ended the king's personal rule of the Congo Free State, and handed over power on 30 June 1960.
Q 05Which Caribbean nation, born of a revolt by enslaved people, declared independence from France in 1804?
Haiti
Haiti became independent on 1 January 1804 after a revolt that began in 1791, founding a state free from slavery and ruled by former captives.
Q 06Which waterway did Egypt's Nasser nationalize in 1956, prompting an invasion by Britain, France and Israel?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal invasion ended in international humiliation for Britain and France, and historians treat it as the end of Britain's role as a superpower.
Q 07Which Asian country, an American colony since 1898, was granted independence on July 4, 1946?
Philippines
The Philippines kept July 4 as its independence day until 1962, when the holiday moved to June 12, the date of an 1898 declaration against Spain.
Q 08Which 1974 coup in Portugal, named after a flower, led to independence for its African colonies?
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution took its name from restaurant worker Celeste Caeiro, who handed the flowers to soldiers, and it ended Portugal's colonial wars.
Q 09Which British prime minister delivered the 1960 Wind of Change speech to South Africa's parliament in Cape Town?
Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan had first given the speech in Accra, Ghana, a few weeks earlier, where it drew little response.
Q 10Which Caribbean nation removed Queen Elizabeth II as head of state in 2021 and became a republic?
Barbados
Barbados swore in Sandra Mason as its first president on 30 November 2021, with Prince Charles in attendance and Rihanna named a National Hero.
Q 11Which British colony in West Africa took the name Ghana when it became independent in 1957?
Gold Coast
The Gold Coast took its new name from an ancient West African empire, known to Arab traders as Ghana, when it became independent on 6 March 1957.
Q 12Which leader won a 1951 election from a colonial prison cell and later became Ghana's first prime minister?
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah stood for an Accra seat while jailed in Fort James; his party won in a landslide and he walked free days later.
Q 13Who became India's first prime minister in 1947 and delivered the midnight speech known as Tryst with Destiny?
Jawaharlal Nehru
Q 21Which author of Facing Mount Kenya spent years in British detention before leading Kenya to independence in 1963?
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta preached reconciliation between black Kenyans and the white minority after independence, and was given the honorary title Mzee.
Q 22Which 1950s uprising against British rule in Kenya was fought mainly by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters?
Mau Mau
Mau Mau was a name some fighters said they never used, preferring Kenya Land and Freedom Army; the capture of their field marshal Dedan Kimathi in 1956 signalled defeat.
Q 23Which West African country gained independence from Britain as a federation on 1 October 1960?
Nigeria
Jawaharlal Nehru spoke to the Constituent Assembly towards midnight on 14 August 1947 and went on to hold the office for more than 16 years.
Q 14Which last viceroy of India oversaw partition and stayed on as independent India's first governor-general?
Lord Mountbatten
Lord Mountbatten, an uncle of Prince Philip, had been Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia before he was sent to wind up British rule.
Q 15Which London-trained barrister led the Muslim League and became Pakistan's first governor-general in 1947?
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah is revered in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam, the Great Leader, though he held the new office for only a year before his death in 1948.
Q 16At which 1954 battle did General Giap's besieging army defeat France, leading to French withdrawal from Indochina?
Dien Bien Phu
Dien Bien Phu fell after the besiegers hauled heavy artillery up the mountain slopes around the French base, and peace terms followed ten weeks later.
Q 17Which leader read Vietnam's declaration of independence in September 1945 and later gave his name to Saigon?
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh had invited American OSS officers to comment on his draft, yet no foreign country recognised the declaration.
Q 18Which trained engineer proclaimed Indonesia's independence in August 1945 and became its first president?
Sukarno
Sukarno held a civil engineering degree and had co-founded an architecture firm before politics; Indonesians call him the Father of the Proclamation.
Q 19Which French leader, returned to power by the 1958 Algerian crisis, went on to accept Algeria's independence?
Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle ended the war to the fury of the French army and of the pieds-noirs, the European settlers born and raised in Algeria.
Q 20Which country annexed Korea in 1910 and ruled it as a colony until the end of World War II?
Japan
Japan's surrender in 1945 freed Korea from colonial rule, but the peninsula was at once divided into Soviet and American occupation zones.
Nigeria was one of seventeen African colonies to become independent in 1960, which became known as the Year of Africa.
Q 24Which country emerged in 1980 from the breakaway white-minority state of Rhodesia after a long guerrilla war?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe gained recognised sovereignty in April 1980 after a 15-year guerrilla war, with Robert Mugabe as its first prime minister.
Q 25Which country, once German South West Africa, won independence from South African rule in 1990?
Namibia
Namibia was taken from Germany by South African forces in 1915 and handed to South Africa as a League of Nations mandate in 1920.
Q 26Which Caribbean island voted to leave the West Indies Federation and became independent from Britain on 6 August 1962?
Jamaica
Jamaica had joined the federation of Britain's Caribbean colonies in 1958, but a referendum produced a slight majority for leaving it.
Q 27Which island nation was known as Ceylon when it gained independence from Britain in 1948?
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka kept the name Ceylon as a dominion and adopted its present name only in 1972, when it became a republic.
Q 28Which Venezuelan-born general, known as El Libertador, drove Spain out of much of South America by 1825?
Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar and his allies defeated Spanish forces from Venezuela to Peru between 1819 and 1825, and Bolivia is named after him.
Q 29Which Indonesian city hosted the 1955 conference of 29 Asian and African states that opposed colonialism?
Bandung
Bandung welcomed delegations from countries representing 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world's population at the time.
Q 30Which Labour prime minister led the British government that granted India independence in 1947?
Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee had studied Indian self-rule twenty years earlier as a member of the Simon Commission, and came to sympathise with Indian independence.