praj-17/QA-MCQ-Open-ended huggingface dataset:
Title: Near_East
Context: The populations of those lands did not accept Turkish rule. The Turks to them were foreigners with completely different customs, way of life, and language. Intervals when there was no unrest were rare. The Hungarians had thrown off Turkish rule by 1688. Serbia was created by the Serbian Revolution, 1815–1833. The Greek War of Independence, 1821–1832, created modern Greece, which recovered most of the lands of ancient Greece, but could not gain Constantinople. The Ottoman Porte was continuously under attack from some quarter in its empire, primarily the Balkans. Also, on a number of occasions in the early 19th century, American and British warships had to attack the Barbary pirates to stop their piracy and recover thousands of enslaved Europeans and Americans.

question: The populations did not accept what? 

answer: Turkish rule

question: The Hungarians had thrown off Turkish rule by what year?  

answer: 1688

question: What created Serbia? 

answer: the Serbian Revolution

question: When was the Serbian Revolution? 

answer: 1815–1833

question: When was the Greek War of Independence? 

answer: 1821–1832
Title: Near_East
Context: In 1853 the Russian Empire on behalf of the Slavic Balkan states began to question the very existence of the Ottoman Empire. The result was the Crimean War, 1853–1856, in which the British Empire and the French Empire supported the Ottoman Empire in its struggle against the incursions of the Russian Empire. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire lost control of the Balkan region.

question: When did the Russian Empire begin to question the existence of the Ottoman Empire? 

answer: 1853

question: When was the Crimean War? 

answer: 1853–1856

question: During the Crimean War who did the British and French support? 

answer: the Ottoman Empire

question: What was the Ottoman Empire's struggle against in the Crimean War? 

answer: the incursions of the Russian Empire

question: The Ottoman Empire eventually lost control of what region? 

answer: the Balkan region
Title: Near_East
Context: Until about 1855 the words near east and far east did not refer to any particular region. The far East, a phrase containing a noun, East, qualified by an adjective, far, could be at any location in the "far east" of the speaker's home territory. The Ottoman Empire, for example, was the far East as much as the East Indies. The Crimean War brought a change in vocabulary with the introduction of terms more familiar to the late 19th century. The Russian Empire had entered a more aggressive phase, becoming militarily active against the Ottoman Empire and also against China, with territorial aggrandizement explicitly in mind. Rethinking its policy the British government decided that the two polities under attack were necessary for the balance of power. It therefore undertook to oppose the Russians in both places, one result being the Crimean War. During that war the administration of the British Empire began promulgating a new vocabulary, giving specific regional meaning to "the Near East," the Ottoman Empire, and "the Far East," the East Indies. The two terms were now compound nouns often shown hyphenated.

question: Until what year did the words near east and far east not refer to any particular region?  

answer: 1855

question: What brought a change in vocabulary? 

answer: The Crimean War

question: The Russian Empire became more militarily active against who? 

answer: the Ottoman Empire

question: Who decided the two polities under attack were necessary for the balance of power?  

answer: the British government

question: What empire began promulgating a new vocabulary? 

answer: the British Empire
Title: Near_East
Context: In 1855 a reprint of a letter earlier sent to The Times appeared in Littel's Living Age. Its author, an "official Chinese interpreter of 10 years' active service" and a member of the Oriental Club, Thomas Taylor Meadows, was replying to the suggestion by another interpreter that the British Empire was wasting its resources on a false threat from Russia against China. Toward the end of the letter he said:

question: When was a reprint of a letter sent to The Times appear in Littel's Living Age? 

answer: 1855

question: Who was the author of the letter sent to the Times? 

answer: Thomas Taylor Meadows

question: What was Thomas Taylor Meadows replying to? 

answer: the suggestion by another interpreter
Title: Near_East
Context: Much of the colonial administration belonged to this club, which had been formed by the Duke of Wellington. Meadows' terminology must represent usage by that administration. If not the first use of the terms, the letter to the Times was certainly one of the earliest presentations of this vocabulary to the general public. They became immediately popular, supplanting "Levant" and "East Indies," which gradually receded to minor usages and then began to change meaning.

question: What was one of the earliest presentations of this vocabulary? 

answer: the letter to the Times

question: What was said must represent usage by that administration? 

answer: Meadows' terminology

question: Who had formed the club that contained much of the colonial administration? 

answer: Duke of Wellington
Title: Near_East
Context: "Near East" remained popular in diplomatic, trade and journalistic circles, but a variation soon developed among the scholars and the men of the cloth and their associates: "the Nearer East," reverting to the classical and then more scholarly distinction of "nearer" and "farther." They undoubtedly saw a need to separate the Biblical lands from the terrain of the Ottoman Empire. The Christians saw the country as the land of the Old and New Testaments, where Christianity had developed. The scholars in the field of studies that eventually became Biblical archaeology attempted to define it on the basis of archaeology.

question: What remained popular in diplomatic, trade and journalistic circles? 

answer: "Near East"

question: What variation soon developed among the scholars and the men of the cloth and their associates? 

answer: "the Nearer East,"

question: There was a need to separate what from the terrain of the Ottoman Empire? 

answer: the Biblical lands

question: What did the Christians see the country as? 

answer: the land of the Old and New Testaments

question: How did the scholars attempt their definition?  

answer: on the basis of archaeology
Title: Near_East
Context: For example, The London Review of 1861 (Telford and Barber, unsigned) in reviewing several works by Rawlinson, Layard and others, defined themselves as making:

question: When was the London Review? 

answer: 1861

question: Rawlinson, Layard and others were reviewed in what? 

answer: The London Review of 1861

question: Who wrote The London Review of 1861? 

answer: (Telford and Barber
Title: Near_East
Context: The regions in their inventory were Assyria, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Ethiopia, Caucasus, Libya, Anatolia and Abyssinia. Explicitly excluded is India. No mention is made of the Balkans.

question: What region was explicitly excluded? 

answer: India

question: What region has no mention? 

answer: the Balkans

question: Assyria, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Ethiopia, Caucasus, Libya, Anatolia, and Abyssinia were all what? 

answer: regions in their inventory
Title: Near_East
Context: Hogarth then proceeds to say where and why in some detail, but no more mention is made of the classics. His analysis is geopolitical. His map delineates the Nearer East with regular lines as though surveyed. They include Iran, the Balkans, but not the Danube lands, Egypt, but not the rest of North Africa. Except for the Balkans, the region matches the later Middle East. It differs from the Ottoman Empire of the times in including Greece and Iran. Hogarth gives no evidence of being familiar with the contemporaneous initial concept of the Middle East.

question: What does Hogarth say in detail? 

answer: where and why

question: Hogarth makes no mention of what? 

answer: the classics

question: How is Hogarth's analysis? 

answer: geopolitical
Title: Near_East
Context: In the last years of the 19th century the term "Near East" acquired considerable disrepute in eyes of the English-speaking public as did the Ottoman Empire itself. The cause of the onus was the Hamidian Massacres of Armenians because they were Christians, but it seemed to spill over into the protracted conflicts of the Balkans. For a time, "Near East" meant primarily the Balkans. Robert Hichens' book The Near East (1913) is subtitled Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople.

question: When did the term "Near East" acquire considerable disrepute? 

answer: the 19th century

question: The term "Near East" acquired considerable disrepute in whose eyes? 

answer: English-speaking public

question: What was the cause of the onus? 

answer: the Hamidian Massacres of Armenians

question: What was the cause of the Hamidian Massacres of Armenians? 

answer: they were Christians

question: When was Robert Hickens' book wrote? 

answer: 1913)
Title: Near_East
Context: The change is evident in the reports of influential British travellers to the Balkans. In 1894, Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet, a journalist, travelled to the Far East, afterwards writing a book called The Peoples and Politics of the Far East, which came out in 1895. By "Far East" he meant Siberia, China, Japan, Korea, Siam and Malaya. As the book was a big success, he was off to the Balkan states with his wife in 1896 to develop detail for a sequel, The People and Politics of the Near East, which Scribners planned to publish in 1897. Mrs. Norman, a writer herself, wrote glowing letters of the home and person of Mme. Zakki, "the wife of a Turkish cabinet minister," who, she said, was a cultivated woman living in a country home full of books. As for the natives of the Balkans, they were "a semi-civilized people."

question: Reports from who made the change evident? 

answer: influential British travellers

question: Where did Sir Henry Norman travel in 1894 

answer: the Far East

question: What book did Sir Henry Norman write after traveling to the Far East? 

answer: The Peoples and Politics of the Far East

question: What year did Sir Henry Norman's book come out?  

answer: 1895
Title: Near_East
Context: The book was never published. Instead the Normans whirled off to New York. Norman published the gist of his planned travel book curiously mixed with vituperation against the Ottoman Empire in an article in June, 1896, in Scribner's Magazine. The empire had descended from an enlightened civilization ruling over barbarians for their own good to something considerably less. The difference was the Hamidian Massacres, which were being conducted even as the couple traveled the Balkans. According to Norman now, the empire had been established by "the Moslem horde" from Asia, which was stopped by "intrepid Hungary." Furthermore, "Greece shook off the turbaned destroyer of her people" and so on. The Russians were suddenly liberators of oppressed Balkan states. Having portrayed the Armenians as revolutionaries in the name of freedom with the expectation of being rescued by the intervention of Christian Europe, he states "but her hope was vain." England had "turned her back." Norman concluded his exhortation with "In the Balkans one learns to hate the Turk." Norman made sure that Gladstone read the article. Prince Nicolas of Montenegro wrote a letter thanking him for his article.

question: Where did the Normans go off to instead of publishing the book? 

answer: New York

question: When did Norman publish parts of his planned travel book? 

answer: June, 1896

question: What magazine did Norman publish his work in? 

answer: Scribner's Magazine

question: Who were liberators of oppressed Balkan states? 

answer: The Russians

question: Who did Norman say "turned her back"? 

answer: England
Title: Near_East
Context: Throughout this article Norman uses "Near East" to mean the countries where "the eastern question" applied; that is, to all of the Balkans. The countries and regions mentioned are Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which was Moslem and needed, in his view, to be suppressed), Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Romania. The rest of the Ottoman domain is demoted to just "the east."

question: What does Norman mean in the article when saying "Near East"? 

answer: the countries where "the eastern question" applied

question: What is the rest of the Ottoman domain demoted to? 

answer: just "the east."

question: "The East" refers to what? 

answer: The rest of the Ottoman domain
Title: Near_East
Context: If Norman was apparently attempting to change British policy, it was perhaps William Miller (1864–1945), journalist and expert on the Near East, who did the most in that direction. In essence, he signed the death warrant, so to speak, of the Age of Empires. The fall of the Ottoman Empire ultimately enmeshed all the others as well. In the Travel and Politics in the Near East, 1898, Miller claimed to have made four trips to the Balkans, 1894, 1896, 1897 and 1898, and to be, in essence, an expert on "the Near East," by which he primarily meant the Balkans. Apart from the fact that he attended Oxford and played Rugby not many biographical details have been promulgated. He was in effect (whatever his formal associations if any) a point man of British near eastern intelligence.

question: What was William Miller's life span? 

answer: 1864–1945

question: What was William Miller an expert on? 

answer: the Near East

question: So to speak, what did William Miller do? 

answer: signed the death warrant, so to speak, of the Age of Empires

question: Where did Miller attend school? 

answer: Oxford
Title: Near_East
Context: These were fighting words to be coming from a country that once insisted Europe needed Turkey and was willing to spill blood over it. For his authority Miller invokes the people, citing the "collective wisdom" of Europe, and introducing a concept to arise many times in the decades to follow under chilling circumstances:

question: Miller's words were considered what? 

answer: fighting words

question: It was considered Europe needed what country? 

answer: Turkey

question: What was Miller citing? 

answer: the "collective wisdom" of Europe
Title: Near_East
Context: If the British Empire was now going to side with the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire had no choice but to cultivate a relationship with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was supported by the German Empire. In a few years these alignments became the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance (already formed in 1882), which were in part a cause of World War I. By its end in 1918 three empires were gone, a fourth was about to fall to revolution, and two more, the British and French, were forced to yield in revolutions started under the aegis of their own ideologies.

question: The Ottoman Empire had no choice but to develop their relationship with what country? 

answer: Austro-Hungarian Empire

question: Who supported the Austro-Hungarian Empire? 

answer: the German Empire

question: Who did the British Empire side with? 

answer: the Russian Empire

question: The formation of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance partly caused what? 

answer: World War I

question: By what year were three empires gone?  

answer: 1918
Title: Near_East
Context: By 1916, when millions of Europeans were becoming casualties of imperial war in the trenches of eastern and western Europe over "the eastern question," Arnold J. Toynbee, Hegelesque historian of civilization at large, was becoming metaphysical about the Near East. Geography alone was not a sufficient explanation of the terms, he believed. If the Ottoman Empire had been a sick man, then:

question: What year was Arnold J toynbee becoming metaphysical about the Near East? 

answer: 1916

question: Who was the Hegelesque historian of civilization? 

answer: Arnold J. Toynbee

question: Arnold J Toynbee believed what? 

answer: Geography alone was not a sufficient explanation of the terms
Title: Near_East
Context: From the death of the Near East new nations were able to rise from the ashes, notably the Republic of Turkey. Paradoxically it now aligned itself with the west rather than with the east. Mustafa Kemal, its founder, a former Ottoman high-ranking officer, was insistent on this social revolution, which, among other changes, liberated women from the strait rules still in effect in most Arabic-speaking countries. The demise of the political Near East now left a gap where it had been, into which stepped the Middle East.

question: What was able to rise from the death of the Near East? 

answer: new nations

question: What notable nation was able to rise from the ashes of the Near East? 

answer: the Republic of Turkey

question: How did the Republic of Turkey align themselves? 

answer: with the west

question: Who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey? 

answer: Mustafa Kemal

question: Who was a former Ottoman high-ranking officer? 

answer: Mustafa Kemal
Title: Near_East
Context: The term middle east as a noun and adjective was common in the 19th century in nearly every context except diplomacy and archaeology. An uncountable number of places appear to have had their middle easts from gardens to regions, including the United States. The innovation of the term "Near East" to mean the holdings of the Ottoman Empire as early as the Crimean War had left a geographical gap. The East Indies, or "Far East," derived ultimately from Ptolemy's "India Beyond the Ganges." The Ottoman Empire ended at the eastern border of Iraq. "India This Side of the Ganges" and Iran had been omitted. The archaeologists counted Iran as "the Near East" because Old Persian cuneiform had been found there. This usage did not sit well with the diplomats; India was left in an equivocal state. They needed a regional term.

question: When was the term middle east common as a noun and adjective? 

answer: the 19th century

question: The middle east was not common in diplomacy and what other context? 

answer: archaeology

question: Where did the "Far East" derive from?  

answer: Ptolemy's "India Beyond the Ganges."

question: Where did the Ottoman Empire end? 

answer: the eastern border of Iraq

question: Why did archaeologists count Iran as "The Near East"? 

answer: because Old Persian cuneiform had been found there
Title: Near_East
Context: The use of the term Middle East as a region of international affairs apparently began in British and American diplomatic circles quite independently of each other over concern for the security of the same country: Iran, then known to the west as Persia. In 1900 Thomas Edward Gordon published an article, The Problem of the Middle East, which began:

question: Where did the use of the term Middle East as a region of international affairs begin? 

answer: in British and American diplomatic circles

question: What was Iran known as to the west? 

answer: Persia

question: When did Thomas Edward Gordon publish "The Problem of the Middle East"? 

answer: 1900

question: What article did Thomas Edward Gordon publish? 

answer: The Problem of the Middle East

question: The problem of the Middle East was published by who? 

answer: Thomas Edward Gordon
Title: Near_East
Context: The threat that caused Gordon, diplomat and military officer, to publish the article was resumption of work on a railway from Russia to the Persian Gulf. Gordon, a published author, had not used the term previously, but he was to use it from then on.

question: What threat caused Gordon to publish his article? 

answer: resumption of work on a railway

question: Who was a diplomat and military officer? 

answer: Gordon

question: Who had not used the term middle east previously in publications? 

answer: Gordon
Title: Near_East
Context: A second strategic personality from American diplomatic and military circles, Alfred Thayer Mahan, concerned about the naval vulnerability of the trade routes in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, commented in 1902:

question: Who was a member of American diplomatic and military circles? 

answer: Alfred Thayer Mahan

question: What was Alfred Thayer Mahan concerned about? 

answer: the naval vulnerability of the trade routes

question: When did Alfred Thayer Mahan comment on the trade routes? 

answer: 1902
Title: Near_East
Context: Apparently the sailor did not connect with the soldier, as Mahan believed he was innovating the term Middle East. It was, however, already there to be seen.

question: Who did not connect with the soldier? 

answer: the sailor

question: What did Mahan believe he was innovating? 

answer: the term Middle East

question: What had already been there to be seen? 

answer: the term Middle East
Title: Near_East
Context: Until the period following World War I the Near East and the Middle East coexisted, but they were not always seen as distinct. Bertram Lenox Simpson, a colonial officer killed eventually in China, uses the terms together in his 1910 book, The Conflict of Color, as "the Near and Middle East." The total super-region consisted of "India, Afghanistan, Persia, Arabistan, Asia Minor, and last, but not least, Egypt." Simpson (under his pen-name, Weale) explains that this entire region "is politically one region – in spite of the divisions into which it is academically divided." His own term revives "the Nearer East" as opposed to "the Far East."

question: The Near East and the Middle East coexisted until what period? 

answer: the period following World War I

question: Who was the colonial officer killed in China? 

answer: Bertram Lenox Simpson

question: Who wrote the 1910 book 'The Conflict of Color'? 

answer: Bertram Lenox Simpson

question: What was Simpson's pen-name? 

answer: Weale
Title: Near_East
Context: The basis of Simpson's unity is color and colonial subjection. His color chart recognizes a spectrum of black, brown and yellow, which at the time had been traditional since the late 19th century. Apart from these was "the great white race", which the moderate Simpson tones down to simply the white race. The great whites were appearing as late as the 1920s works of James Henry Breasted, which were taught as the gospel of ancient history throughout the entire first half of the 20th century. A red wavelength was mainly of interest in America. The eastern question was modified by Simpson to "The Problem of the Nearer East," which had nothing to do with the Ottomans but everything to do with British colonialism. Simpson wrote of the white man:

question: What is the basis of Simpson's unity? 

answer: color and colonial subjection

question: The great whites were appearing as late as what time? 

answer: the 1920s

question: In whose works were the great whites appearing? 

answer: James Henry Breasted

question: What was mainly of interest in America? 

answer: A red wavelength
Title: Near_East
Context: These regions were occupied by "the brown men," with the yellow in the Far East and the black in Africa. The color issue was not settled until Kenya became independent in 1963, ending the last vestige of the British Empire.

question: These regions were occupied by who? 

answer: the brown men

question: Where where the yellow? 

answer: the Far East

question: Where were the black? 

answer: Africa

question: When did Kenya become independent? 

answer: 1963

question: The color issue was not settled until when? 

answer: Kenya became independent