Postwar Society and Culture: 1945–1960
Upheaval and Change: 1960–1970 Part One
Upheaval and Change: 1960-1970 Part Two
Crisis of Confidence: 1968-1980
The Reagan (Musical) Revolution: 1980-1992
100
The year in which "Dewey Defeats Truman" appeared as an erroneous headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune.
What is 1948? (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p.51) EXPLANATION 1) "Truman took off on a transcontinental train tour in search of an electorate. He traveled over 32,000 miles and made hundreds of speeches, talking directly to about 12 million people. He repeatedly blasted what he called the “do nothing, good for nothing” Eightieth Congress, blaming all of the ills of the nation on the Republican-controlled legislature. He called the Republicans “gluttons of privilege” who would destroy the New Deal if elected. He depicted Dewey as Hoover redux and insisted that a Republican administration would bring back the grim days of depression" (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p. 50). 2) "How could Truman score such a surprising victory and confound all of the experts? Republican overconfidence helped. Many Republicans, assuming victory, did not bother to vote. Truman’s spirited, grassroots campaign effort was a factor. But Truman won mainly because he was able to hold together enough of the old New Deal coalition of labor, Northern liberals, blacks, and farmers to win. Black voters provided Truman with his margin of victory in key states such as California, Ohio, and Illinois. Many independent voters opted for Truman, blaming an obstructionist Republican-controlled Congress rather than the president for the legislative gridlock. Many Southern whites, although offended by Truman’s advocacy of civil rights, nevertheless voted for Truman out of party loyalty and because they did not want to waste their votes on a protest candidate who had no chance to win" (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p. 50).
100
The city in which this photograph was taken... BONUS: 100 points for any team that can write down the name of the man who gave the orders to fire these water canons and use other forms of torture to put down the nonviolent protests. 100 points for any team that can write down the name of a prominent civil rights leader who was jailed here.
What is Birmingham, Alabama? According to Moss and Thomas (2013), Black freedom "protests were nonviolent; the city’s response was not. City leaders directed Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor to forcibly put an end to the demonstrations. During the next month, Birmingham police arrested over 2,000 African Americans, many of them schoolchildren. Connor ordered his police force to use high-pressure fire hoses, electric cattle prods, clubs, and police dogs to break up the demonstrations. Newspapers and television news broadcasts conveyed to a shocked nation the brutal white police assaults on nonviolent black people. King himself was jailed. While locked up in solitary confinement, he composed his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail, an eloquent defense of the tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience" (110).
100
This word is used to describe the idea that women should be treated equally, have equal pay for equal work, and consists of a "movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression" (hooks, 2000, p. 3).
What is feminism?
100
The CREEP team worked for this president, and CREEP is an acronym that stands for this... Members of the CREEP team were connected to this historical case of corrupt espionage.
Who is Richard Nixon? and What is the Committee to REElect the President? What is the Watergate burglary? The CREEP directed the breaking into Democratic Offices to help the Nixon re-election chances. When the burglars were caught Nixon ordered a massive cover up. When the cover up was divulged, the fallout led to the down fall Nixon and his resignation (Moss & Thomas, 2013, p. 174-175).
100
This song was invoked during this president's reelection campaign in 1984--ironically not ironically. The song itself is a lament of the economic situation of working class people during the right-wing surge to power and the economic devastation of deindustrialization of the period.
What is "Born in the USA," and who is Ronald Reagan? At a campaign stop in New Jersey Reagan said, "“America’s future,” Reagan told the small-town audience, “rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire—New Jersey’s own, Bruce Springsteen” (Dolan, 2014). Springsteen went on to say the song was about "a working-class man" in a "spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost...It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his family...to the point where nothing makes sense."
200
This is the actual number of people who died in the Korean War: A. 36,516 B. 415,000 C. nearly 2 million
What is (C), nearly 2 million?: EXPLANATION: A total of 36,516 Americans died in Korea, and another 150,000 were wounded. Approximately 415,000 South Korean and 1.5 million North Korean and Chinese troops were also killed (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p.41).
200
True or False: The North Vietnamese Navy attacked the U.S.S. Maddox twice in the Gulf of Tonkin, thus giving president Johnson every right to attack and invade North Vietnam.
What is False. According to Moss and Thomas (2013), "In presenting their case for the resolution, administration officials misled the Congress. Congressmen and senators were not told that the Maddox was on a spy mission when it was attacked, nor that the second attack may not have occurred. Secretary of Defense McNamara characterized both incidents as unprovoked acts of aggression against U.S. ships on routine patrol in international waters" (p. 134). The so-called first attack According to a U.S. Naval Institute article was not an attack but a response to being attacked; on Aug. 1, 1964 the U.S.S. Maddox (fearing an attack) fired first at the Vietnamese ship, which then fired a torpedo in response: "Captain Herrick ordered gun crews to open fire if the fast-approaching trio closed to within 10,000 yards of the destroyer, and at about 1505 three 5-inch shots were fired across the bow of the closest boat. In return, the lead vessel launched a torpedo and veered away" (Paterson, 2008). The second attack was simply radar, sonar and radio malfunction in bad weather. Ellsberg (2002) reports a cable from Maddox Commander Herrick: "Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken" (pp.9-10). And the Naval Institute article by Paterson (2008) states: "Commander Stockdale ... arrived overhead at 2135. For more than 90 minutes, he made runs parallel to the ships' course and at low altitude (below 2,000 feet) looking for the enemy vessels. He reported later, "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there . . . there was nothing there but black water and American firepower."
200
According to Moss and Thomas (2013), “The 1960s had begun with President Kennedy’s appeal for national renewal. ... But after his assassination, the national scenario that unfolded for the rest of the decade featured sit-ins, marches, riots, bombings, the burning of cities, and more assassinations. Expectations of peace, prosperity, and justice for all vanished in the face of political polarization, social fragmentation, cultural crisis, and the Vietnam War" (p. 141). These three cities (among many others) experienced some of the riots for social, economic and racial justice referred to here...
What are Watts, Detroit, Newark, NYC, Washington, D.C. (mentioned in Moss and Thomas (2013)). But there were several hundred uprisings around the United States in which Black people and others in solidarity expressed their rage at economic inequality, police brutality, and political marginalization.
200
This word describes a relaxing of tensions; it's often used to describe the easing of conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and between the U.S. and China.
What is détante?
200
Released in 1982, this song A) began what is perhaps the album of the century, and seems to describe the US invasion of B) this Caribbean nation the following October 1983. Other songs from this period include C) D) E) F) and G). You must name both the title and the artist to get the points. H) 100 extra Bonus points if you can name which of these songs is NOT an original but is actually a cover of an Italian song by Umberto Tozzi. You get 200 points for correctly name both A) and B) and 100 BONUS points (if you get A and B) for each of C) D) E)
A) What is "Wanna be Startin' Something." B) What is Grenada? Maurice Bishop leader of Grenada prior to the U.S. invasion stated, “And as the international capitalist crisis intensifies, it generates increased imperialist aggression, spearheaded by the most reactionary circles of imperialism’s military–industrial complexes who feel that the solution to this crisis in the build–up of arms, the provocation of wars and the creation of tension spots around the world, the Caribbean region being no exception" (Bishop, 2014, p. 327). C) The Pretenders, "Back on the Chain Gang" D) Laura Brannigan, "Gloria" E) Madonna, "Lucky Star" F) Donna Summer, "She Works Hard for the Money" G) Irene Cara, "Flashdance... What a Feeling" H) Gloria
300
The names of three European allies of the U.S. during the 1950s. 100 points will be awarded for each correct answer, 100 points will be deducted for each incorrect answer and other teams will be given a chance to steal points for unanswered or incorrect answers.
What are (at least three of the following) France, Italy, West Germany, England, Belgium, Iceland, Greece, Turkey, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal? See map (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p.27).
300
According to Moss and Thomas (2013), the major obstacle to significant social and economic reform in the U.S. in the late 1960s (known as President Johnson's "Great Society") was this.
What is The Vietnam War? Moss and Thomas (2013) state, "Johnson, who wanted to achieve his place in history as the president who fulfilled the social vision of the New Deal, had escalated the war in Vietnam and thereby strangled Great Society. The fight for civil rights, the struggle to save the cities, the efforts to improve the public schools, and to clean up the environment—all were starved for the sake of the escalating war. It is a sad and bitter irony that the man who most wanted to extend the New Deal presided over its collapse and prepared the way for a profound shift to the Right in American politics. Great Society turned out to be the last major surge of liberal reform legislation in recent American history" (p.130).
300
President Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, planned and ordered a secret and illegal carpet bombing of these two countries...
What are Cambodia and Laos? Howard Zinn shares this: "In September 1973, a former government official in Laos, Jerome Doolittle, wrote in the New York Times: The Pentagon's most recent lies about bombing Cambodia bring back a question that often occurred to me when I was press attache at the American Embassy in Vientiane, Laos. Why did we bother to lie? When I first arrived in Laos, I was instructed to answer all press questions about our massive and merciless bombing campaign in that tiny country with: "At the request of the Royal Laotian Government, the United States is conducting unarmed reconnaissance flights accompanied by armed escorts who have the right to return if fired upon." This was a lie. Every reporter to whom I told it knew it was a lie. Hanoi knew it was a lie. The International Control Commission knew it was a lie. Every interested Congressman and newspaper reader knew it was a lie.. . . After all, the lies did serve to keep something from somebody, and the somebody was us" (p.556).
300
The CIA along with the U.S. corporation I.T.T. helped to destabilize the economy of this country. Nixon and Kissenger then supported a coup of the country's democratically elected president, Salvadore Allende, on September 11, 1973.
What is Chile?
300
Movements grew across the US, especially on Historically Black Colleges, against A) this policy in South Africa, including songs such as by these artists: B) C) D). 300 points for correct answer A plus 100 for each correct for B) C) D).
What is Apartheid? While politicians like Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, and Margaret Thatcher were calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist and giving political, economic, and public relations support to the Apartheid Regime in South Africa, many people in the United States were working to end Apartheid. Who are A) Stevie Wonder, B) Peter Gabriel, and C) United Artists Against Apartheid (name any including Run DMC, DJ Kool Herc and Melle Mel, Afrika Bambata and Kurtis Blow, Stephen Van Zandt, David Ruffin, Pat Benatar, Eddie Kendrick, Bruce Springsteen, George Clinton, Joey Ramone, Jimmy Cliff, Darryl Hall, Darlene Love, etc. Ain't Gonna Play Sun City was inspired by artist little Stephan (Stephan Van Zandt) and journalist Danny Schecter's idea to go beyond "We are the World," to make "a song about change not charity, freedom not famine."
400
DAILY DOUBLE According to Moss and Thomas, In the U.S. "in 1960, the richest 1 percent of the population owned [this portion] of the national wealth. The wealthiest 5 percent of America’s families owned over [this fraction] of the nation’s wealth" (2013, p. 65). Both answers must be correct to receive all of the wagered points.
What is "one third" and "one half"? This has only increased over the next 50 years: according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute, "the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans control 35.6 percent of the total wealth of the country -- more than a third. Even more incredible is that the richest 10 percent of Americans control 75 percent of the wealth, leaving only 25 percent to the other 90 percent of Americans" (Allegretto, 2011). And may continue into the future: "The combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked, Oxfam warned" Jan 19, 2015.
400
Dien Bien Phu (1954) and the Tet Offensive in this year (A) were major victories for this country (B) against external aggression by these two foreign powers respectively (C) and (D). 100 points will be awarded for each correct answer, 100 points will be deducted for each incorrect answer and other teams will be given a chance to steal points for unanswered or incorrect answers.
What are A. 1968, B. Vietnam, C. France, and D. the U.S.A.?
400
This leader in the 60s student movement wrote the Port Huron Paper Statement in which he "criticized the apolitical apathy of college students and denounced the military-industrial complex as a threat to democracy. He called for an end to poverty in America and for the creation of 'a democracy of individual participation,' in which all members subject to the authority of a government institution would participate in its decision-making processes" (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p. 142). He's still active in politics to this day.
Who is Tom Hayden?
400
This proposed amendment sought to guarantee equal rights for women in the United States, was passed by both houses of congress, but was only ratified by this number of states when 38 were needed.
What is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and what is 35?
400
This drug swept deindustrialized cities in the late 1980s causing a epidemics of addiction, violence, and dirty commerce within already declining communities. This song by this group pointed to the symptoms of destruction. You must get all parts of the question correct to get the points.
What is Crack Cocaine? What is "Night of the Living Baseheads"? Who is Public Enemy?
500
According to Moss and Thomas (2013), this historic migration represented the largest movement of people inside the U.S. in its history and this occurred during these years. BONUS ANSWER: All teams are eligible. These are the names of the countries whose governments and leaders the U.S.A. helped to overthrow during the 1950s. (Each team must write down the names of the country or countries in the form of a question and will receive an extra 100 points per correct country).
What is Suburbanization (Suburban Sprawl, White Flight, Cities to Suburbs)? And when is the "thirty years following World War II (1945-1975; forties, fifties and sixties)? (Thomas and Moss, 2013, p.66). Thomas and Moss (2013) point out: "suburbs tended to make people more homogeneous" (p.67). "Suburbanization separated Americans racially. Most African American and Hispanic families were left behind in big cities as white families headed for the suburbs. The developer of Levittown built it for young white men with families. Single people, minorities, and the elderly were not welcome. Ten years after its founding, with a population of 82,000, Levittown on Long Island was the largest all-white city in the nation" (p.68). "According to urbanist Lewis Mumford, Levittown represented a culture of “ticky-tacky.” It was inhabited by people of the same class, the same tastes, who watched the same pallid fare on television, and ate the same bland prefabricated foods" (p.67). BONUS QUESTION: What are Iran (Mossadegh), and Guatemala (Arbenz)?
500
An outline of the key events in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Each correct stage in the outline will receive 100 points up to 500. 100 points will be deducted for each incorrect answer and other teams will be given a chance to steal points for unanswered or incorrect answers.
What is A. U.S. fails in its invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, and U.S. installs missiles aimed at Soviet Union installed in Italy and Turkey in 1961. B. Soviets/Cubans install missiles and aircraft to defend Cuba from future U.S. hostility. C. U.S. sets up a blockade around the island and U.S. demand that all missiles and offensive weapons be removed from Cuba. D. After 5 days of waiting and U.S. preparation for war, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sends a letter saying that they will remove all offensive weapons from Cuba, and then a second letter demanding that in exchange the U.S. give a no-invasion-of-Cuba pledge plus remove its Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy. Kennedy accepts the first offer and ignores the second. E. After intense negotiations between Robert Kennedy and Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet ambassador to the United States, and a U.S. U2 spy plane being shot down, Khrushchev agrees to remove offensive weapons and the U.S. suspends its blockade. (Moss and Thomas, 2013, p. 115-117)
500
This is the approximate number of people who died in the Vietnam War between 1954 and 1975... a.) 58,220; b.) 600,000 c.) 5.4 million
What is 5.4 million? This includes 58,220 U.S. service members, 223,748 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 5,200 South Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders, and Thais; plus 1.1 million Vietnamese soldiers, and 4 million Vietnamese civilians (AFP, 1995).
500
DAILY DOUBLE These are the names of 5 Hollywood blockbuster movies of the 1970s. Each team must have at least 5 correct answers to receive the points they wager.
What are The Godfather (1972), The Exorcist (1973), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Taxi Driver (1975), Star Wars (1977), among others.
500
Originally the media portrayed the bombing of Oklahoma city to certainly be the work of Muslim terrorists, but it turned out to be a man raised Christian who read white supremacist literature by this name. One song commemorating the bombing was by 80s country icon who sings here.
Who is Timothy McVeigh? Who is Garth Brooks?
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