Q 01/05

Before independence, what was Vanuatu called?

A) The New Hebrides

B) The Gilbert Islands

C) The Ellice Islands

D) The Loyalty Islands

Answer · why

A) The New Hebrides

The New Hebrides was ruled by Britain and France at the same time for 74 years, and the new republic dropped the colonial name on independence day in ...

Q 02/05

Which explorer charted Vanuatu in 1774 and gave the islands the name they kept until independence?

A) William Bligh

B) James Cook

C) Louis de Bougainville

D) Abel Tasman

Answer · why

B) James Cook

James Cook's name for the chain outlasted him by two centuries: even the French, whose own explorer Bougainville had sailed through six years earlier,...

Q 03/05

Pedro Fernandes de Queirós led the first Europeans to Vanuatu in 1606, believing he had found what?

A) A sea route to India

B) The Spice Islands

C) A great southern continent

D) The coast of China

Answer · why

C) A great southern continent

A great southern continent, he thought: Queirós claimed the land for Spain and founded a settlement there, then abandoned it within weeks.

Q 04/05

Vanuatu belongs to which island region?

A) Micronesia

B) Polynesia

C) Melanesia

D) Macaronesia

Answer · why

C) Melanesia

Melanesia: Vanuatu helped found the region's political bloc, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, in the 1980s and still hosts its headquarters, in a build...

Q 05/05

Britain and France's joint rule of colonial Vanuatu was mockingly nicknamed what?

A) The Labyrinth

B) The Pandemonium

C) The Stalemate

D) The Masquerade

Answer · why

B) The Pandemonium

The Pandemonium, a pun on its official name, the Condominium: each power ran its own administration, courts and schools, and they shared a joint court...