Vietnam War
This agreement temporarily divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel in 1954.
What are the Geneva Accords?
President Eisenhower’s strategy to push the U.S. to the edge of nuclear war for diplomatic leverage.
What is brinkmanship?
The launch of this Soviet satellite in 1957 heightened fears of U.S. technological inferiority.
What is Sputnik?
A 13-day standoff in 1962 brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.
What is the Cuban Missile Crisis?
This term refers to the fear of communist infiltration in American society during the 1950s.
What is the Second Red Scare?
This resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad military powers in Vietnam after alleged attacks on U.S. ships.
What is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
The fear that if one nation fell to communism, others in the region would follow.
What is the domino theory?
This Cold War rivalry involved the U.S. and the USSR competing for space exploration dominance.
What is the space race?
The discovery of these items in Cuba triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What are nuclear missiles?
The fear of communism influenced this American defense strategy, which included building fallout shelters.
What is civil defense?
This policy, introduced by President Nixon, aimed to transfer combat responsibilities to South Vietnamese forces.
What is Vietnamization?
The competition to develop better nuclear weapons and strategies led to this doctrine ensuring mutual destruction.
What is mutual assured destruction?
The U.S. created this agency in 1958 to lead the country’s space exploration efforts.
What is NASA?
This president negotiated the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Who is John F. Kennedy?
This term describes the practice of blacklisting suspected communists in Hollywood.
What is blacklisting?
This massive 1968 military campaign by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong shook American confidence in the war.
What is the Tet Offensive?
This policy under Eisenhower sought to ease tensions with the Soviet Union while avoiding nuclear war.
What is peaceful coexistence?
The first American astronaut to orbit the Earth in 1962.
Who is John Glenn?
This failed U.S.-backed invasion aimed to overthrow Fidel Castro in 1961.
What is the Bay of Pigs Invasion?
These two individuals were executed for allegedly passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Who are Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?
The U.S. used these chemical agents to defoliate jungles in Vietnam.
What are napalm and Agent Orange?
This treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union reduced intermediate-range nuclear weapons in 1987.
What is the INF Treaty?
The U.S. program that ultimately landed a man on the moon in 1969.
What is the Apollo program?
This U.S. policy involved blocking Soviet ships to prevent the delivery of missiles to Cuba.
What is a naval blockade?
This senator became infamous for his accusations of communism in the U.S. government.
Who is Joseph McCarthy?