History: 1900 to the present

Twenty questions on the last part of the Life in the UK history chapter, from the First World War to devolution and the Good Friday Agreement.

The two wars, kept apart

Almost every wrong answer in the first half of this test is a real fact from the other world war. 1914 and 1939. The assassination in Sarajevo and the invasion of Poland. Lloyd George and Churchill. The Somme in the trenches and the Battle of Britain in the air. Getting the two wars separated is most of the work in this section.

Within the second war, three moments are asked about and are regularly confused with each other: Dunkirk, an evacuation in 1940; the Battle of Britain, the air campaign that made an invasion impossible later the same year; and D-Day, 6 June 1944, the landings that began the liberation of western Europe. And VE Day, 8 May 1945, is the end of the war in Europe only — the war against Japan ran on until August.

The dates about rights and nations

1918 and 1928. Women first voted in a general election in 1918, but only over 30 and only with a property qualification. Equality with men, at 21, came ten years later. The test asks precisely enough that "1918" on its own is not the whole answer.

1922. Most of Ireland left the UK as the Irish Free State, which is why the country's name changed to include Northern Ireland only.

1997 and 1998. Referendums in Scotland and Wales led to the devolved bodies that began work in 1999 — devolution, not independence. The Good Friday Agreement set up power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

The welfare state, and who built it

The Beveridge Report of 1942 named the five giants the post-war settlement was meant to defeat, and the NHS followed in 1948 — free at the point of use and paid for from taxation. The same year the Empire Windrush arrived, at the start of the post-war migration from the Caribbean and south Asia: people invited to come and work because Britain was short of labour, many of them into the new health service itself.

And the scientists

Fleming and penicillin in 1928, Crick and Watson and the structure of DNA in 1953, Alan Turing at Bletchley Park and afterwards. Each is paired in this test with another real British scientist from a different field or century, because that is how the questions are usually set.

The questions and explanations here are Zestly's own, written from publicly known facts. No text is reproduced from the official handbook, which is a separate copyrighted publication and the only real syllabus.

• Keep the two world wars apart — their start dates, causes, battles and leaders
• Order Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, D-Day and VE Day, and say what each was
• State exactly what the 1918 Act gave women and what changed in 1928
• Say what happened to Ireland in 1922 and how the country's name changed
• Explain the Beveridge Report, the founding of the NHS and why post-war migration happened
• Distinguish devolution from independence, and describe the Good Friday Agreement
• Attach Fleming, Crick and Watson, and Turing to their discoveries

Written from publicly known facts of British history, covering the ground the official syllabus sets out for this period: the First World War from 1914 and the Battle of the Somme; votes for women in 1918 and equality in 1928, and Emmeline Pankhurst's campaign; the Irish Free State in 1922; the Second World War from 1939, Churchill, the Battle of Britain, D-Day on 6 June 1944 and VE Day on 8 May 1945; the Beveridge Report of 1942 and the founding of the NHS in 1948; post-war migration from the Commonwealth and the Empire Windrush; Margaret Thatcher as the first woman Prime Minister in 1979; the UK joining the European Community in 1973; the devolution referendums of 1997 and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; and British scientists including Fleming, Crick and Watson, and Turing. No wording is taken from the official handbook, which is a commercial copyrighted publication.