World War II Quiz
Codenames, turning points and leaders: 15 questions on the war that reshaped the world.
In what year did Germany invade Poland, triggering the start of WWII in Europe?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
1939
Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and Britain and France declared war two days later, turning a regional invasion into a world war.
The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17 under a secret clause of the Nazi-Soviet pact signed the previous month.
What was the codename for the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Operation Overlord
Overlord was the overall codename for the Normandy campaign, with the landings themselves called Operation Neptune; some 156,000 troops went ashore on D-Day.
Barbarossa was Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, and Market Garden was the failed Allied airborne push into the Netherlands in September 1944.
Which battle is considered the turning point of the Eastern Front, ending in a German surrender in February 1943?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Battle of Stalingrad
Field Marshal Paulus surrendered the encircled German Sixth Army on February 2, 1943, after a five-month battle that cost close to two million casualties on both sides.
Kursk, five months later, was the largest tank battle in history and ended Germany's last major offensive in the East.
What was the name of the US project that developed the atomic bomb?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project, run by General Leslie Groves with J. Robert Oppenheimer leading the Los Alamos laboratory, tested the first bomb at Trinity in July 1945.
Tube Alloys was Britain's own atomic program, later folded into the American effort under the 1943 Quebec Agreement.
Which Japanese city was the target of the first atomic bomb dropped in wartime?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Hiroshima
The B-29 Enola Gay dropped the bomb known as Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing an estimated 70,000 people instantly; Nagasaki followed three days later.
Kokura was the primary target on August 9, but cloud and smoke spared the city and the bomber diverted to Nagasaki.
Who was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Normandy invasion?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in December 1943 and gave the final order to launch D-Day despite marginal weather.
Eisenhower drafted a note taking full blame in case the landings failed, and it stayed in his wallet unneeded.
What was the Luftwaffe?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
German Air Force
The Luftwaffe was Germany's air force, led by Hermann Göring, and it lost the Battle of Britain in 1940 after failing to defeat the RAF.
The German navy was the Kriegsmarine, and the secret police was the Gestapo.
The evacuation of Allied soldiers from which French port in 1940 is known as "Operation Dynamo"?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Dunkirk
Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, more than 338,000 British and French troops were evacuated from Dunkirk by naval vessels and hundreds of civilian 'little ships'.
Tens of thousands of French soldiers who held the perimeter were captured after the last boats left.
Which country was NOT part of the Axis powers during WWII?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union fought with the Allies after Germany invaded it in June 1941, while Germany, Italy and Japan had bound themselves together in the 1940 Tripartite Pact.
Smaller Axis members included Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, while Finland fought alongside Germany as a co-belligerent until 1944.
What was the name of the German strategy of rapid, concentrated attacks using mobile forces?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg, German for 'lightning war', combined fast-moving tanks, motorized infantry and close air support to punch through defenses before enemies could react.
The term was popularized by Western journalists; German commanders themselves rarely used it in official doctrine.
Which naval battle in June 1942 is considered the turning point of the Pacific War?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Battle of Midway
American dive bombers sank four Japanese aircraft carriers in a single day on June 4, 1942, a loss the Japanese navy never recovered from.
U.S. codebreakers had cracked enough of the Japanese naval code to know the attack was coming, letting Admiral Nimitz set an ambush.
At which February 1945 conference in Crimea did Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agree on plans for post-war Europe?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Yalta Conference
The Big Three met at Yalta from February 4 to 11, 1945, agreeing to divide Germany into occupation zones and to hold elections in liberated Eastern Europe.
Potsdam, held that July, was Truman's first summit as president and came after Germany's surrender.
Which of the following was central to how the Nazi regime carried out the Holocaust?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A systematic network of concentration and extermination camps
The Nazis murdered around six million Jews, about half of them in extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, and much of the rest in mass shootings.
Nazi persecution also killed millions of others, including Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war and political opponents.
On what date did Japan formally surrender, ending WWII?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
September 2, 1945
Japanese officials signed the surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, formally ending the war.
Emperor Hirohito had announced the surrender by radio on August 15, the first time most Japanese had ever heard his voice.
Which British leader famously declared "We shall fight on the beaches" in a 1940 speech to Parliament?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Winston Churchill
Churchill delivered the speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, just after the Dunkirk evacuation, vowing to fight on 'whatever the cost may be'.
Churchill had been prime minister for less than a month, having replaced Neville Chamberlain on May 10, 1940.
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All History quizzes →About the World War II Quiz
World War II ran from September 1939 to September 1945, drew in more than 30 countries and killed an estimated 70 to 85 million people. It began with German tanks crossing the Polish border, spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and ended with the first use of nuclear weapons. Along the way it produced some of the most studied battles, speeches and decisions in modern history.
These 15 questions cover the European and Pacific theaters, the big turning-point battles, the codenames, the leaders and the conferences that shaped the peace. Most questions sit at medium difficulty: a keen documentary watcher will do well, while a history student should be aiming for full marks. It suits classrooms, quiz nights and anyone who wants to check how much of the war's story they really know.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Medium. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
How many people died in World War II?
Estimates range from 70 to 85 million, around 3 percent of the world's population in 1940. The Soviet Union and China suffered the largest losses.
How many questions are in the World War II Quiz?
There are 15 multiple-choice questions, each with four options and an instant explanation, covering both the European and Pacific theaters.
Is the quiz suitable for students?
Yes. It covers the key dates, battles and leaders found in most school history syllabuses, and every explanation adds a fact you can use in class.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- In what year did Germany invade Poland, triggering the start of WWII in Europe?
1939 Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and Britain and France declared war two days later, turning a regional invasion into a world war. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17 under a secret clause of the Nazi-Soviet pact signed the previous month. - What was the codename for the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944?
Operation Overlord Overlord was the overall codename for the Normandy campaign, with the landings themselves called Operation Neptune; some 156,000 troops went ashore on D-Day. Barbarossa was Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, and Market Garden was the failed Allied airborne push into the Netherlands in September 1944. - Which battle is considered the turning point of the Eastern Front, ending in a German surrender in February 1943?
Battle of Stalingrad Field Marshal Paulus surrendered the encircled German Sixth Army on February 2, 1943, after a five-month battle that cost close to two million casualties on both sides. Kursk, five months later, was the largest tank battle in history and ended Germany's last major offensive in the East. - What was the name of the US project that developed the atomic bomb?
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project, run by General Leslie Groves with J. Robert Oppenheimer leading the Los Alamos laboratory, tested the first bomb at Trinity in July 1945. Tube Alloys was Britain's own atomic program, later folded into the American effort under the 1943 Quebec Agreement. - Which Japanese city was the target of the first atomic bomb dropped in wartime?
Hiroshima The B-29 Enola Gay dropped the bomb known as Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing an estimated 70,000 people instantly; Nagasaki followed three days later. Kokura was the primary target on August 9, but cloud and smoke spared the city and the bomber diverted to Nagasaki. - Who was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Normandy invasion?
Dwight D. Eisenhower Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in December 1943 and gave the final order to launch D-Day despite marginal weather. Eisenhower drafted a note taking full blame in case the landings failed, and it stayed in his wallet unneeded. - What was the Luftwaffe?
German Air Force The Luftwaffe was Germany's air force, led by Hermann Göring, and it lost the Battle of Britain in 1940 after failing to defeat the RAF. The German navy was the Kriegsmarine, and the secret police was the Gestapo. - The evacuation of Allied soldiers from which French port in 1940 is known as "Operation Dynamo"?
Dunkirk Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, more than 338,000 British and French troops were evacuated from Dunkirk by naval vessels and hundreds of civilian 'little ships'. Tens of thousands of French soldiers who held the perimeter were captured after the last boats left. - Which country was NOT part of the Axis powers during WWII?
Soviet Union The Soviet Union fought with the Allies after Germany invaded it in June 1941, while Germany, Italy and Japan had bound themselves together in the 1940 Tripartite Pact. Smaller Axis members included Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, while Finland fought alongside Germany as a co-belligerent until 1944. - What was the name of the German strategy of rapid, concentrated attacks using mobile forces?
Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg, German for 'lightning war', combined fast-moving tanks, motorized infantry and close air support to punch through defenses before enemies could react. The term was popularized by Western journalists; German commanders themselves rarely used it in official doctrine. - Which naval battle in June 1942 is considered the turning point of the Pacific War?
Battle of Midway American dive bombers sank four Japanese aircraft carriers in a single day on June 4, 1942, a loss the Japanese navy never recovered from. U.S. codebreakers had cracked enough of the Japanese naval code to know the attack was coming, letting Admiral Nimitz set an ambush. - At which February 1945 conference in Crimea did Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agree on plans for post-war Europe?
Yalta Conference The Big Three met at Yalta from February 4 to 11, 1945, agreeing to divide Germany into occupation zones and to hold elections in liberated Eastern Europe. Potsdam, held that July, was Truman's first summit as president and came after Germany's surrender. - Which of the following was central to how the Nazi regime carried out the Holocaust?
A systematic network of concentration and extermination camps The Nazis murdered around six million Jews, about half of them in extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, and much of the rest in mass shootings. Nazi persecution also killed millions of others, including Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war and political opponents. - On what date did Japan formally surrender, ending WWII?
September 2, 1945 Japanese officials signed the surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, formally ending the war. Emperor Hirohito had announced the surrender by radio on August 15, the first time most Japanese had ever heard his voice. - Which British leader famously declared "We shall fight on the beaches" in a 1940 speech to Parliament?
Winston Churchill Churchill delivered the speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, just after the Dunkirk evacuation, vowing to fight on 'whatever the cost may be'. Churchill had been prime minister for less than a month, having replaced Neville Chamberlain on May 10, 1940.
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