1942 Trivia Questions and Answers From The 40s
United States and Philippines troops fight the
Battle of
what, against Japanese forces?
A: Bataan.
Operation Typhoon, the German attempt to take Moscow, ends
in what?
A: Failure.
Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades what?
A: The Dutch East Indies.
Who captures Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated
Malay States?
A: The Japanese.
Germans at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin decide that the
"Final Solution (Endlösung) to the Jewish problem" is what?
A: Relocation, and later extermination.
The first American forces arrive in Europe, landing where?
A: In Northern Ireland.Ireland Trivia Quiz
Questions
What C. S. Lewis book is first published in book format in
England?
A: The Screwtape Letters.
President Roosevelt signs an executive order directing the
internment of whom?
A: Japanese Americans and the seizure of their property.
Who is elected president of Portugal?
A: António Óscar Carmona.
Daylight saving time goes into effect where?
A: In the United States.
Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first what?
A: U.S. Navy WWII flying ace.
The Japanese submarine I-17 fires 17 high-explosive shells
toward what?
A: An oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, causing little damage.
What begins broadcasting?
A: The Voice of America.
The 14th Academy Awards ceremony is held where?
A: In Los Angeles.
At the 14th Academy Awards, what film won Best Picture?
A: How Green Was My Valley .
The German extermination camp Treblinka II opens in
where?
A: In occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka
The German extermination camp Sobibór opens where?
A: In occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór.
Between April 1942 and October 1943, how many people are
killed here?
A: at least 160,000.
The Bataan Peninsula falls and the Bataan what begins?
A: The Bataan Death March.
Tokyo, Japan, is attacked by the Doolittle Raid, a small
force of what?
A: B-25 Mitchell bomber aircraft commanded by then-Lieutenant Colonel James
"Jimmy" Doolittle.
United Kingdom forces invade where?
A: The French colony of Madagascar.
The Battle of the Coral Sea ends how?
A: In an Allied victory.
The first African-American seamen are taken into what?
A: The United States Navy.
The United States declares war on what three countries?
A: Bulgaria, Hungary & Romania.
Japanese forces invade where?
A: The Aleutian Islands (the first invasion of American
soil in 128 years).
Germans burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for
what?
A: The killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
The Gestapo massacres 173 male residents of Lidice,
Czechoslovakia in retaliation for what?
A: The killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
On her 13th birthday, what does Anne Frank do?
A: She makes the first entry in her new diary.
The SS surrounds the church where Jan Kubiš and Jozef
Gabčík, the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich, are hiding, and to avoid capture,
what do the two men do?
A: Commit suicide.
Anne Frank's family does what?
A: Goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office.
The systematic deportation of Jews from where begins?
A: The Warsaw Ghetto.
The gas chambers at Treblinka extermination camp begin
operation, killing how many Jews newly arrived from the Warsaw Ghetto?
A: 6,500.
What Walt Disney animated film premieres in the United
Kingdom?
A: Bambi.
What Indian leader is arrested in Bombay by British forces?
A: Mohandas Gandhi.
At the Battle of Milne Bay, the Japanese forces suffer
their first what?
A: Defeat on land.
A hurricane and
flood in Bombay kills how many people?
A: 40,000.
What road is completed?
A: The Alaska Highway.
What movie premières at the
Hollywood Theater in New York
City?
A: Casablanca.
A fire in the Cocoanut Grove night club in Boston,
Massachusetts, kills how many people?
A: 491.
Rationing of what begins in the United States?
A: Gasoline.
Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of
Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi does what?
A: Initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
An avalanche in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania kills 26 when two
100 ton "what" fall on a bus filled with wartime steel workers on their way
home?
A: Boulders.
DDT is first used as a what?
A: A pesticide.
