On this day, 61 years ago, Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Egypt. Turn on, tune in and answer these 10 questions about revolutions from around the world.

1. Starting with fiction, which graphic novel and successful film features the fascist Norsefire Party seizing power in the UK in the ’90s? Hint, bulletproof question.

2. The Portuguese celebrate ‘Freedom Day’ on April 25 — the day the military dictatorship was finally overthrown in 1974. By what name is the movement known?

3. Which country in the Americas was the setting for the ‘Quiet Revolution’ in the ’60s and led to the start of a separatist movement and two referendums?

4. In 1961, he was urgently called into India by a certain C Subramaniam and used the IR8 to start one of India’s longest running revolutions. Who, and what did he start?

5. Which country had a non-violent uprising known as the ‘Yellow Revolution’ after the assassination of a senior opposition senator in August 1983?

6. This was originally composed in 1792 by Claude De Lisle and titled ‘Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin.’ However, it got its more popular name after being sung in Paris by volunteers from another city in France during the French Revolution. Identify the song.

7. Where would you come across Old Major teaching his followers a revolutionary song titled ‘Beasts of England’?

8. Who led an army against the Romans in 72 BC in what came to be known as the ‘Third Servile War’?

9. The Stonewall riots, which erupted in June 1969 in New York in protest against an early morning police raid, are regarded as the single most important event in the history of which movement?

10. In India, the term ‘White Revolution’ is associated with Operation Flood and the development of the dairy industry. But which other Asian country had a reform movement known as the ‘White Revolution’ which started in 1963 and continued into the ’70s?

Answers

1.V for Vendetta , the cult classic authored by Alan Moore

2. The Carnation Revolution, as the celebrating crowds put carnations in the muzzles of the rifles of the soldiers after the junta was overthrown

3. Canada. It was known as the Quiet Revolution as it was peaceful

4. Norman Borlaug was invited by the minister of agriculture, and the IR8 was the first ‘miracle rice’ used for the Green Revolution. In 30 years, India has moved from being on the brink of a famine to being a major rice exporter

5. Philippines; the assassinated leader was Benigno Aquino, also a one-time suitor of Imelda Marcos

6. ‘La Marseillaise’, translated in many languages and also the French national anthem

7. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , a thinly veiled account of post-revolution Russia. The character of Old Major, one of the oldest pigs in the farm, was based on Karl Marx

8. Spartacus, a Thracian who also served in the Roman army before becoming a gladiator

9. The Gay Liberation Movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the US

10. Iran. It was launched by the Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi to strengthen his own position. Things did not go as planned as he was deposed in 1979

( Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup )

Follow Joy on Twitter@joybhattacharj

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW