Middle East History

Question 1

The first ruler of the Ottoman Empire was…

Answer 1

Osman Bey

Question 2

Approximately when did the Ottoman Empire begin?

Answer 2

the early 1300s (foundation: 1299)

Question 3

About how long did the Ottoman Empire keep expanding?

Answer 3

500 years

Question 4

The Ottoman Empire’s expansion time exceeded the entire lifetime of the Roman Empire.

Answer 4

True

Question 5

Over what time period did the Ottoman Empire decline?

Answer 5

mid-1800s to the end of World War 1

Question 6

Under which caliphate did Islam reach its maximum extent?

Answer 6

Omayyad Caliphate

Question 7

How long after the founding of Islam did the Muslim empire reach its maximum geographic extent?

Answer 7

100 years

Question 8

Islam was founded in _____ [time] in ______ [place]

Answer 8

early 600s (7th century), present-day Saudi Arabia

Question 9

The Prophet Muhammad lived from __ to __ A.D.

Answer 9

c. 570; 632

Question 10

The Phoenicians lived in these modern-day regions.

Answer 10

Lebanon and coastal Syria

Question 11

The Phoenician civilization’s birth and decline:

Answer 11

Approx. 1500-300 BC

Question 12

“Phoenicia” is Greek for:

Answer 12

“Land of Purple”

Question 13

The first trading networks of the Mediterranean were run by:

Answer 13

the Phoenicians (1500-300 BC)

Question 14

The “Fertile Crescent” includes the following present-day countries:

Answer 14

Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel-Palestine. Some include Egypt’s Nile river valley

Question 15

People began farming in the Fertile Crescent around this time.

Answer 15

9000 BC

Question 16

[flip to view map] The Middle East in 1914: the Middle East transitions from ~500 years of Ottoman rule to 50~100 years of European rule.

Answer 16

Question 17

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 [flip to view map]

Answer 17

Question 18

The borders between Iraq, Syria, and Jordan originated from:

Answer 18

The borders between French and British spheres of influence in the Ottoman Empire’s last Middle Eastern regions

Question 19

The Six-Day War was fought over these dates.

Answer 19

June 5-10, 1967

Question 20

Which countries fought against Israel in the Six-Day War?

Answer 20

Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon

Question 21

Which three actions by Egypt raised tensions that directly led to the Six-Day War?

Answer 21

Closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping;

moving ground troops into the Sinai Peninsula;

expelling UN peacekeepers from Sinai.

Question 22

What territories did Israel capture in the Six-Day War?

Answer 22

Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt)
West Bank including East Jerusalem (from Jordan)
Golan Heights (from Syria)

Question 23

When was a UN Emergency Force (UNEF) stationed in the Sinai Peninsula?

Answer 23

After the 1956 Suez Crisis

Question 24

What role did Ariel Sharon (11th PM of Israel) play in the Six-Day War?

Answer 24

As a Major-General, he commanded the most powerful armoured division (38th AD) on the Sinai front.
Assigned a defensive role, Sharon instead designed his own complex offensive strategy involving infanty, armour, and paratroopers from fixed-wing and helos.

Question 25

Which of the territories captured by Israel in 1967 were given back in 1979 as part of a peace deal?

Answer 25

The Sinai Peninsula

Question 26

What is the only Middle Eastern country that was never conquered by a European power?

Answer 26

Iran

Question 27

When did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan?

Answer 27

1979

Question 28

Why did the USSR invade Afghanistan in 1979?

Answer 28

To defend the pro-Moscow communist government against growing rebellion

Question 29

Which foreign powers funded the anti-Moscow rebels during the Soviet war in Afghanistan?

Answer 29

USA, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan

Question 30

The Taliban in Afghanistan overlaps roughly, but not perfectly, with this ethicity’s geographic distribution:

Answer 30

Pashtuns in the South and East. (This is important since there are so many Pashtuns across the border in Pakistan, where the Taliban have major operating bases)

Question 31

Generally, the ___ of Afghanistan is stabler and less violent than the ___ and ___.

Answer 31

North; South, East

Question 32

The Middle East produces about __ of the world’s oil and __ of its gas.

Answer 32

a third; a tenth

Question 33

Middle-East energy resources are heavily clustered in three neighboring countries that have historically hated one another: ___, ___, ___.

Answer 33

Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia

Question 34

[map of Kurdish geographic distribution and historic attempts at defining national borders]

Answer 34

Question 35

Vox.com’s 40 Maps that Explain the Middle East:
“Should the arbitrary [Middle East] borders imposed by European powers be replaced with new borders along the region’s ever-fractious religious divide?”

Answer 35

The idea is unworkable in reality and would probably just create new problems. But this is basically already what the region looks like. The Iraqi gov’t controls Iraq’s Shia-majority east, but Sunni Islamist extremists have seized much of western Iraq and eastern Syria. The Shia-dominated Syrian government, meanwhile, mostly only controls Syria’s Shia- and Christian-heavy west. The Kurds are legally autonomous in Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) and functionally so in Syria.