Behind the curtain...
After World War II, this German city was divided into four occupation zones even though it sat inside the Soviet occupation zone.
What is Berlin?
This European country fought a brutal war from 1954–1962 to retain Algeria.
What is France?
This communist leader defeated Chiang Kai-shek and established the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Who is Mao Zedong?
Israel captured this peninsula from Egypt in 1967.
What is the Sinai Peninsula?
This Cuban dictator was overthrown by Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959.
Who is Fulgencio Batista?
This 1949 military alliance committed the United States and Western European states to collective defense.
What is NATO?
This European country held onto Angola and Mozambique long after most European empires had begun decolonizing.
What is Portugal?
This river marked the boundary that UN forces approached before China entered the Korean War.
What is the Yalu River?
This Egyptian leader nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956.
Who is Gamal Abdel Nasser?
This Argentine-born revolutionary became one of the most famous symbols of the Cuban Revolution.
Who is Che Guevara?
This Soviet-led alliance was formed in 1955 after West Germany joined NATO.
What is the Warsaw Pact?
This country sent thousands of combat troops to Angola in 1975 in support of the MPLA, demonstrating that communist states could pursue their own interests rather than simply follow Moscow.
What is Cuba?
This Vietnamese leader led the communist struggle against both France and later South Vietnam.
Who is Ho Chi Minh?
Jordan lost this territory, including East Jerusalem, to Israel in 1967.
What is the West Bank?
Che Guevara promoted this theory that a small guerrilla force could spark a broader revolution.
What is foco theory?
This 1956 uprising was crushed by Soviet military intervention after its government threatened to leave the Soviet bloc.
What is the Hungarian Uprising?
Britain and the Soviet Union supported the same side in this African civil war, while France backed the separatists.
What is the Nigerian Civil War/Biafran War?
This 1954 French defeat demonstrated that the Viet Minh had developed the ability to fight large conventional battles.
What is Dien Bien Phu?
Syria lost this strategically important high ground to Israel in 1967.
What are the Golan Heights?
This failed 1961 invasion attempted to overthrow Castro using Cuban exiles.
What is the Bay of Pigs?
American aid to the Greek government during its civil war became an early application of this larger U.S. Cold War strategy.
What is containment? What is Truman Doctrine?
Led by Ian Smith, this white-minority state declared independence from Britain in 1965.
What is Rhodesia?
This U.S. policy shifted more responsibility for the war to South Vietnamese forces as American troops withdrew.
What is Vietnamization?
Israel exploited a gap between Egypt’s Second and Third Armies and crossed this waterway in 1973.
What is the Suez Canal?
This Soviet leader confronted Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Who is Nikita Khrushchev?
Workers in this Soviet-controlled state launched a major uprising in 1953, revealing that communist rule in Eastern Europe was less stable than it appeared.
What is East Germany / the German Democratic Republic?
This 1974 military-led revolution in Portugal accelerated decolonization across southern Africa.
What is the Carnation Revolution?
This South Vietnamese president was overthrown and killed in 1963, beginning a period of greater political instability.
Who is Ngo Dinh Diem?
Nasser closed these straits in May 1967, helping trigger the Six-Day War.
What are the Straits of Tiran?
This 1954 U.S.-backed overthrow helped radicalize parts of the Latin American Left.
What is the Guatemalan coup?