1930s History Trivia

The 1930s were defined by hardship at home and menace abroad, with breadlines and dust storms in one hemisphere and rising dictatorships in another. This quiz covers the decade that set the stage for the deadliest war in human history.

Eleven questions on the Depression years and the gathering storm that followed.

Hard Times in the Heartland

The Great Depression, triggered by the 1929 crash, ground on through most of the decade, throwing millions out of work. In the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs tried to rebuild the economy, while punishing drought turned the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl, driving farming families west in search of a living.

Dictators on the Rise

Economic misery abroad created fertile ground for authoritarian movements. Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933 and quickly dismantled the country's democratic institutions, while Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 signaled a new era of aggressive expansion in East Asia. Spain, meanwhile, was consumed by a brutal civil war that became a preview of the ideological battles to come.

The Decade's Final Turn

• Nazi Germany's 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jewish citizens of civil rights.
• The Hindenburg disaster of 1937 ended the golden age of airship travel.
• Amelia Earhart vanished mid-flight in 1937, still one of aviation's enduring mysteries.
• Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland finally tipped Europe into war.