Cold War Basics
This term describes the period of tension (approximately 1945–1991) when the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global influence without direct military conflict.
What is the Cold War?
Who launched the first satellite into space?
Who is the Soviet Union
He was the U.S. President during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) who demanded that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba.
Who is John F. Kennedy?
This conflict (with major U.S. involvement from roughly 1965–1973) was fought in Southeast Asia to prevent the spread of communism into South Vietnam.
What is the Vietnam War?
In August 1964, reports of an attack on U.S. Navy ships by North Vietnamese patrol boats off Vietnam’s coast (the Gulf of Tonkin) led Congress to give President Johnson broad war powers. This controversial incident became known as the Gulf of ______ Incident.
What is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident?
These two superpower nations were allies in World War II but became rivals during the Cold War, leading opposing blocs (one democratic/capitalist and the other communist).
What are the United States and the Soviet Union?
In April 1961, a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. The invasion failed disastrously and is known by this infamous name.
What is the Bay of Pigs invasion?
This communist revolutionary led Cuba after seizing power in 1959, aligning his country with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Who is Fidel Castro?
The belief that if one nation fell to communism, neighboring countries would soon follow was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This idea was known as the ______ Theory.
What is the Domino Theory?
In January 1968, during the Vietnamese holiday of Tet, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a massive surprise offensive across South Vietnam. Though the attackers were eventually pushed back, this event shocked the U.S. public and eroded support for the war.
What is the Tet Offensive?
President Truman’s post–World War II foreign policy aimed at stopping the expansion of communism was known by this term.
What is containment?
Erected by East Germany in 1961 and torn down in 1989, this concrete barrier divided a major German city into communist and non-communist sectors, becoming a powerful symbol of the Cold War.
What is the Berlin Wall?
The Soviet Premier from 1958 to 1964, he famously clashed with the U.S. in the early 1960s — even banging his shoe at the U.N. in protest — and placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Who is Nikita Khrushchev?
The communist guerrilla fighters who attacked the South Vietnamese government (and U.S. forces) were commonly known by this two-word name (meaning “Vietnamese Communists”).
Who are the Viet Cong?
On May 4, 1970, National Guard troops opened fire during an anti-war protest at an Ohio university, killing four students. This tragic event further intensified public opposition to the war.
What are the Kent State shootings?
Winston Churchill warned in a 1946 speech that an “______ ______” had descended across Europe, referring to the sharp division between Western Europe and Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.
What is the Iron Curtain?
For 13 tense days in October 1962, the U.S. and the USSR stood on the brink of nuclear war over the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. This superpower standoff is called the ______ ______ ______.
What is the Cuban Missile Crisis?
He was the U.S. President who greatly escalated America’s involvement in Vietnam following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?
President Nixon’s strategy for winding down U.S. involvement in the war — gradually withdrawing American troops and turning the fighting over to South Vietnamese forces — was called ______________.
What is Vietnamization?
In April 1975, as North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, the last Americans were evacuated and the Vietnam War effectively ended with the fall of this city.
What is Saigon?
Who were the Big Three and What Nations did they lead?
Who is FDR/Truman (USA), Stalin (USSR), Winston Churchill (UK)
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, this Soviet naval officer refused to authorize the launch of a nuclear torpedo, likely preventing World War III.
Who is Vasili Arkhipov?
The longtime revolutionary leader of North Vietnam who fought against French colonization and later U.S. involvement, seeking to unite Vietnam under communist rule.
Who is Ho Chi Minh?
What was the name of the booby trap that contained a pit with sharpened bamboo sticks?
What are Punji Stick Traps?
$300: During the Vietnam War, this high-altitude U.S. aircraft, originally designed for spying on the Soviet Union, was used to gather intelligence and take photographs of enemy troop movements in North Vietnam.
What is the U-2 spy plane?