Q 01/05

Saddam Hussein was born in 1937 in a village near which Iraqi city?

A) Baghdad

B) Tikrit

C) Mosul

D) Basra

Answer · why

B) Tikrit

He was buried in the same village, al-Awja, the day after his execution in 2006.

Q 02/05

What does the name Saddam mean?

A) The fighter who stands steadfast

B) The one chosen by God

C) The lion of the desert

D) He who is much praised

Answer · why

A) The fighter who stands steadfast

His father died before he was born, and he was raised largely by an uncle.

Q 03/05

Which uncle became a father figure to Saddam and later mayor of Baghdad?

A) Ali Hassan al-Majid

B) Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

C) Khairallah Talfah

D) Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri

Answer · why

C) Khairallah Talfah

He was a veteran of the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War and the father of Saddam's first wife.

Q 04/05

In which year did Saddam drop out of law school to join the Ba'ath Party?

A) 1961

B) 1963

C) 1968

D) 1957

Answer · why

D) 1957

The party had fewer than 300 members in Iraq two years earlier.

Q 05/05

Which Egyptian leader's pan-Arab nationalism profoundly influenced the young Saddam?

A) Anwar Sadat

B) King Farouk

C) Gamal Abdel Nasser

D) Hosni Mubarak

Answer · why

C) Gamal Abdel Nasser

Saddam later claimed his mantle, alongside those of Nebuchadnezzar and Saladin, during the Gulf War.