world war two - Trivia, Quizzes, and Brain Teasers

Some say that in 1940, a secretive coven used a ritual to keep Hitler out of the UK.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, ca 1503-1506. Photo by C2RMF via the History Blog

The rescue required a dedicated team, some crafty moves, and an ambulance with a stretcher.

The "Olympian of Scoundrelism” told the Nazis he had the occult secrets required to rule the world.

Many important diaries kept by political leaders and ordinary people during World War II have been digitized or otherwise preserved.

Allied forces had a secret ally: German teen gangs that resisted Hitler's messages, sabotaged their military, and embraced American culture.

Erik Jan Hanussen hosted extravagant Nazi parties, loaned them money, and consulted with Hitler. Then they found out he was Jewish.

Heavy artillery wasn't the only weapon people used to fight the Nazi regime during World War II.

Seventy years after World War II's end, three project sites where the atomic bombs were made will be preserved for the public.

6. The "Death Strip" was as scary as it sounds.

Yousuf Karsh, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

The American military had a short-lived plan to turn pigeons into kamikaze pilots.

Residents of an East London neighborhood got quite a surprise earlier today when police knocked on the door to say a decades-old bomb had been discovered in the area.

How German POWs populated small-town America during World War II.

These are the kinds of things the American military wanted its soldiers to be cognizant of as they worked their way into Nazi-occupied France.

Hoping to protect Leonardo's work against attack, officials had guarded it with sandbags and scaffolding years before. And it worked.

Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr / Creative Commons License

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

While some World War II soldiers were storming the beaches of Normandy, others were busy drafting posters to school soldiers on the dangers of venereal diseases.

Reader Scott from Vermont wrote to ask, “Why did the Nazis adopt the ancient sacred symbol of the swastika as their emblem?”

WORLD WAR II

Operation Cone of Power: When British Witches Attacked Adolf Hitler

How the Mona Lisa Escaped Destruction During World War II

Trebitsch Lincoln, the Nazis' Would-Be Supernatural Weapon

12 World War II Diaries You Can Read

The German Teens Who Rebelled Against Hitler

The Jewish Psychic Who Tricked Hitler

The Resistance Group That Battled Hitler With Words

A Brand-New National Historic Park Will Remember the Manhattan Project

13 Things You Might Not Know About the Berlin Wall

How Hospitality and Some Tulips Brought Canada and the Netherlands Together

World War II’s Doomed 'Project Pigeon'

Unexploded WWII Bomb Discovered in East London

Super Soakers: When the Dutch Used Floods as Weapons

The German POWs Who Lived, Worked, and Loved in Texas

19 Bits of Advice About the French, As Told to American Servicemen in WWII

How Da Vinci's The Last Supper Survived a Bomb During WWII

70 Years Ago Today, Kurt Vonnegut Was in Slaughterhouse-Five

10 Odd Jobs From the World War II Military Classification Guide

Why Did the Nazis Hijack the Swastika?

Heroes of the D-Day Invasion

The Lethal Soviet “Night Witches” of the 588th Night Bomber Unit