World War II Jeopardy

From blitzkrieg to V-J Day, this free World War II board gives history classes a full-unit review they can play with phones as buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

The Road to War

$200
In 1938, Britain and France signed this agreement with Hitler, ceding part of Czechoslovakia in an attempt to avoid war.
What is the Munich Agreement?
$400
Germany's 1939 invasion of this country prompted Britain and France to declare war on Germany.
What is Poland?
$600
This 1939 pact between Germany and the Soviet Union secretly agreed to divide Eastern Europe between the two powers.
What is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?
$800
This term describes Germany's fast-moving combined-arms tactic of tanks, aircraft, and infantry that overwhelmed Poland and France early in the war.
What is blitzkrieg?
$1,000
This 1940 evacuation rescued over 300,000 Allied troops from a French beach after they were pushed back by the German advance.
What is the Evacuation of Dunkirk?

The European Theater

$200
In this 1940 air campaign, the German Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force over British skies.
What is the Battle of Britain?
$400
This 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, the largest military operation in history, opened the war's Eastern Front.
What is Operation Barbarossa?
$600
This brutal 1942-1943 battle marked the turning point on the Eastern Front after German forces surrendered a besieged Soviet city.
What is the Battle of Stalingrad?
$800
This month-long German offensive through the Ardennes forest in the winter of 1944-45 was the last major German offensive of the war.
What is the Battle of the Bulge?
$1,000
This German capital fell to Soviet forces in May 1945, days before Germany's unconditional surrender.
What is Berlin?

The Pacific Theater

$200
This December 7, 1941 surprise Japanese attack on a US naval base brought America fully into World War II.
What is the attack on Pearl Harbor?
$400
This 1942 naval battle, fought entirely by carrier-based aircraft, marked a turning point in the Pacific War by crippling Japan's carrier fleet.
What is the Battle of Midway?
$600
This costly 1945 battle for a small volcanic island produced the iconic photo of US Marines raising a flag atop Mount Suribachi.
What is the Battle of Iwo Jima?
$800
This 1945 battle for a Japanese island, the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War, saw heavy civilian casualties and kamikaze attacks on the US fleet.
What is the Battle of Okinawa?
$1,000
In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on these two Japanese cities, hastening Japan's surrender.
What are Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The Home Front

$200
The US government issued these booklets to families, limiting how much gasoline, sugar, and meat they could purchase during the war.
What are ration books?
$400
This nickname described American women who took factory jobs producing planes and munitions while men served overseas.
Who is Rosie the Riveter?
$600
The US government sold these to citizens to help finance the war effort, promising repayment with interest after the war.
What are war bonds?
$800
This 1942 executive order authorized the forced relocation and incarceration of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of them US citizens.
What is Executive Order 9066?
$1,000
This US government agency oversaw wartime propaganda and coordinated the release of war-related news and information to the public.
What is the Office of War Information?

Leaders and Commanders

$200
This British prime minister led his country through the war with defiant speeches after taking office in 1940.
Who is Winston Churchill?
$400
This US general commanded Allied forces in the European Theater and later became president.
Who is Dwight D. Eisenhower?
$600
This US general led Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific and famously vowed to return after retreating from the Philippines.
Who is Douglas MacArthur?
$800
This Italian dictator led the Fascist government allied with Nazi Germany until his ouster in 1943.
Who is Benito Mussolini?
$1,000
This Soviet leader directed the USSR's war effort from Moscow and later attended the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.
Who is Joseph Stalin?

The Holocaust and Aftermath

$200
This term refers to the Nazi regime's systematic murder of six million European Jews during World War II.
What is the Holocaust?
$400
Nazi Germany built these facilities, the largest and deadliest of which was Auschwitz-Birkenau, to carry out mass murder.
What are concentration camps?
$600
This conference of senior Nazi officials, held near Berlin in January 1942, coordinated plans for the mass murder of European Jews.
What is the Wannsee Conference?
$800
After the war, this German city hosted the international military tribunal that tried major Nazi leaders for war crimes.
What is Nuremberg?
$1,000
This young Jewish girl's diary, written while her family hid in an Amsterdam attic, became one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust.
Who is Anne Frank?

Final Jeopardy — Codenames

Codenamed Operation Overlord, this June 6, 1944 Allied landing in Normandy opened a second front in Western Europe.

What is D-Day?

How to run this board

Both theaters get equal weight here: three categories follow the war in Europe and the Pacific, while the others cover the home front, the leaders who shaped the conflict, and the Holocaust and its aftermath.

Because the subject matter ranges from ration books to genocide, set the tone before you start - the Holocaust category is written for sober recall, not for laughs, and it is fine to score it without the buzzer race.

Teams of four with a rotating phone-holder keep everyone involved, and the Final Jeopardy wager makes a natural closing discussion about risk and evidence.

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