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50 free VE Day trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
VE Day looks simple from a distance: Germany surrendered, the war in Europe ended, and on 8 May 1945 people poured out to celebrate. Up close it is stranger. The surrender was signed twice, in two countries, a day apart; the man who authorised it had been head of state for barely a week; and the ceasefire took effect at an hour so late that half of Europe still keeps a different date. These 50 questions follow the day from Hitler's bunker to the Buckingham Palace balcony: the generals and admirals who signed, Churchill's broadcast and his walk to a second speech, the two princesses let loose in London, a US president with a personal reason to remember the date, the riot in a Canadian port, the Soviet parade with its thrown-down flags, and how the day has been kept since, from Russia's 9 May to the 50th, 75th and 80th anniversaries. Play it straight through, use it as a round for a pub or classroom quiz on the anniversary, or print it for a VE Day tea. Every answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds something the headlines left out.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How did Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, with their parents' permission, mark VE night in London?
Mingled incognito with the crowds
Mingled incognito with the crowds: Elizabeth later recalled being 'terrified of being recognised' as lines of strangers linked arms and swept the sisters along.
Q 02How long did Hitler and Eva Braun live as husband and wife in the Berlin bunker before both died?
Less than 40 hours
Less than 40 hours was all the marriage lasted: they wed in the small hours of 29 April in the bunker's map room, and both were dead by the afternoon of 30 April.
Q 03To whose memory did Truman dedicate the victory, with US flags kept at half-staff for 30 days of mourning?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt had died on 12 April, less than a month earlier; Truman, who turned 61 that day, said his only wish was 'that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day'.
Q 04Why do Russia and several former Soviet states celebrate Victory Day on 9 May rather than 8 May?
Moscow was already past midnight
Moscow was already past midnight when the surrender took effect late on the evening of 8 May Central European time, so the Soviet government announced victory on the 9th.
Q 05In France, where 8 May is a public holiday, the date '8 mai 1945' names at least 523 of what?
Streets
Streets: a 2018 count found at least 523 'Rue du 8-Mai-1945' across France's 36,700 communes, the local equivalent of English parishes.
Q 06Germany's first surrender was signed at 02:41 on 7 May 1945 in a schoolhouse in which French city?
Reims
Reims hosted the signing in the red-brick Collège Moderne et Technique that served as SHAEF headquarters; the building is now the city's Surrender Museum.
Q 07The UK does not give VE Day an annual day off, so how did the government mark the 50th and 75th anniversaries?
Moved the May bank holiday
Moved the May bank holiday: in 1995 and again in 2020 the early-May Monday off was shifted to 8 May itself, which in 2020 was a Friday.
Q 08Which New York landmark saw the biggest US VE Day celebrations, then its largest-ever gathering on VJ Day?
Times Square
Times Square was where the VJ Day news arrived on the One Times Square 'zipper' ticker, whose six asterisks stood for the six branches of the US armed forces.
Q 09On which street of ministries did Churchill, straight from the Palace balcony, declare 'This is your victory'?
Whitehall
Whitehall was where Churchill, having left the Palace, told the throng 'In our long history, we have never seen a greater day than this' and that everyone, man or woman, had done their best.
Q 10In which bay, aboard a US battleship, was Japan's formal surrender signed on 2 September 1945?
Tokyo Bay
Tokyo Bay was the setting, aboard the battleship USS Missouri, where Japanese officials signed the Instrument of Surrender on deck; Truman then declared 2 September the official US V-J Day.
Q 11Emperor Hirohito's radio broadcast announcing Japan's surrender fell on which date, the UK's official VJ Day?
15 August 1945
15 August 1945 is also Japan's 'memorial day for the end of the war', while the United States marks its official VJ Day on 2 September, when the surrender document was signed.
Q 12Which field marshal took the German surrender for Denmark and north-west Germany in a carpeted tent on 4 May 1945?
Bernard Montgomery
Bernard Montgomery took it at 18:30 in a carpeted tent at his tactical headquarters on the Timeloberg hill near Lüneburg, where the delegation sent by Dönitz had arrived by car the day before.
Q 13Roughly how many people celebrated in public across the United Kingdom on VE Day, 8 May 1945?
Q 21At what Central European time did the surrender text order all German forces to cease operations on 8 May 1945?
23:01
23:01, one minute past 11 pm, was written into both surrender texts, so the Berlin act was dated 8 May even though the retyped final copies were not ready for signing until after midnight.
Q 22At what time on 8 May 1945 did Churchill's broadcast allow Britons 'a brief period of rejoicing'?
3 pm
3 pm was the broadcast's hour; Churchill tempered the rejoicing by reminding listeners that Japan 'remains unsubdued', then headed to the Palace balcony and a second speech.
Q 23What did NKVD troops throw down beside Lenin's Mausoleum at the end of the 24 June 1945 Victory Parade?
Captured German standards
Over 1,000,000
Over 1,000,000 people turned out across the country, with London's throngs massing along the Mall to the Palace to call for the King.
Q 14Which British islands, freed by the Royal Navy on 9 May 1945, still mark that date with a public holiday?
Jersey and Guernsey
Jersey and Guernsey were reached on 9 May by HMS Beagle and HMS Bulldog respectively; Sark followed on 10 May and the garrison on Alderney only gave up on 16 May.
Q 15Whom did Hitler's will name Reich Chancellor, a post he held for barely a day before his own death?
Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, took the title on 30 April and died in the same bunker complex on 1 May; the will named Bormann as Party Minister in the same breath.
Q 16What else was 20 April 1945, the day Soviet guns began shelling Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered?
Hitler's 56th birthday
Hitler's 56th birthday was the day the 1st Belorussian Front's artillery opened up on the capital; the weight of Soviet shells in the battle exceeded all the bombs Western Allied aircraft had dropped on the city.
Q 17Which capital saw the last major military operation of the war in Europe, fought from 6 to 11 May 1945?
Prague
Prague's own uprising began on 5 May, and the Soviet offensive to relieve it ran three days past VE Day; the Army Group Centre troops facing it were trying to fight west to surrender to the Americans.
Q 18Sent to seek a west-only surrender, which general instead signed Germany's full capitulation on 7 May 1945?
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl signed only after Eisenhower threatened to close Allied lines to surrendering Germans and resume bombing; at Nuremberg the tribunal sentenced him to death.
Q 19How did President Truman's 9 am radio address describe the German surrender, with Japan still fighting?
A victory only half won
A victory only half won was Truman's phrase; Churchill struck the same note in his own broadcast, allowing Britons 'a brief period of rejoicing' while Japan 'remains unsubdued'.
Q 20What sentence did the Nuremberg tribunal hand the grand admiral who had succeeded Hitler as head of state?
10 years
10 years in Spandau Prison was the sentence; he served every day of it, was released on 1 October 1956 and titled his memoirs 'Ten Years and Twenty Days'.
Captured German standards, including the banner of Hitler's SS bodyguard regiment, were flung down next to the mausoleum by a special NKVD division at the end of the longest and largest parade the Soviet capital had ever staged.
Q 24Which chief of the German armed forces high command signed the definitive Berlin surrender on 8 May 1945?
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel kept the OKW post only because the new head of state could not reach Manstein on 2 May; he balked at the Berlin text and had to settle for a verbal assurance instead of the extra 12 hours he asked for.
Q 25Which news agency's Paris bureau chief broke the 36-hour embargo on the surrender, making it front-page news on 8 May?
Associated Press
Associated Press man Edward Kennedy was stripped of his accreditation and eventually fired; in 2012 the agency's president apologised, calling it 'a terrible day for the AP'.
Q 26In which Canadian port did VE Day celebrations on 7–8 May 1945 turn into a looting rampage by thousands of servicemen?
Halifax
Halifax's naval commander had let more than 9,000 sailors ashore for the night; a Royal Commission under Justice Roy Kellock laid the blame squarely on naval command.
Q 27Which French city marks 8 May twice, for VE Day and Joan of Arc lifting its siege the same day in 1429?
Orléans
Orléans celebrates both on the same day; Joan of Arc, France's patron saint, had the English siege lifted during the Hundred Years' War.
Q 28What is the 9 May march begun in 2012 called, in which Russians carry portraits of relatives who served in the war?
Immortal Regiment
Immortal Regiment processions were dreamed up by three journalists who noticed fewer veterans each year; since 2012 they have been held in cities as far apart as Washington, Dushanbe and Berlin.
Q 29The EU's Europe Day shares 9 May with Russia's Victory Day; which 1950 statement does it commemorate?
The Schuman Declaration
The Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 gives the EU its Europe Day, celebrated for 'peace and unity in Europe', so the bloc and Russia mark the same date for very different reasons.
Q 30Whose 1938 Buckingham Palace balcony appearance did George VI echo by inviting Churchill out beside the royal family?
Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain had been waved onto the balcony after returning from Munich with the 1938 agreement; seven years on, a throng shouting 'We want the King!' got Churchill the same spot.