THE END OF WWII
THE COLD WAR BEGINS
COMMUNISM
THE KOREAN WAR + Arms Race
POSTWAR PROSPERITY
100

After WWII, these two nations emerged as the world's superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War.

What are the United States and the Soviet Union?

100

Winston Churchill used this famous phrase in 1946 to describe the division between Western and Eastern Europe.

What is the 'Iron Curtain'?

100

In communist theory, this is the ultimate ideal end state — a _________, stateless society where everyone shares equally.

What is a communist (or classless) society?

100

After WWII, Korea was divided into communist North and democratic South at this latitude.

What is the 38th Parallel?

100

This 1944 legislation gave returning veterans access to college tuition, home loans, and unemployment benefits.

What is the GI Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act)?

200

This international organization was created after WWII to help maintain world peace.

What is the United Nations?

200

This 1947 policy committed the US to helping any country resist communist takeover, beginning with Greece and Turkey.

What is the Truman Doctrine?

200

Karl Marx wrote this famous 1848 book outlining his communist ideology and calling for a workers' revolution.

What is the Communist Manifesto?

200

On this date in 1950, North Korea launched a surprise invasion of South Korea, starting the Korean War.

What is June 25, 1950?

200

Consumer spending tripled between 1945 and 1960, with Americans buying record numbers of refrigerators, washing machines, and this household technology.

What is television?

300

After WWII, Germany was divided into this many occupation zones controlled by the Allied powers.

What is four?

300

The US gave this amount of money to rebuild 17 Western European countries under this 1948 program.

What is $13 billion (the Marshall Plan)?

300

This man led Russia's Communist Revolution in 1917, removed the Tsar, and created the Soviet Union.

Who is Vladimir Lenin?

300

This country, which had backed Nationalist China, was alarmed when Communist China entered the Korean War — fearing that the conflict would escalate into WWIII.

What is the United States?

300

Approximately ___ million babies were born during the _____ _____, reshaping American schools, culture, and economics.

What is 76 million and the baby boom?

400

Japan officially surrendered on this date in 1945, ending World War II.

What is September 2, 1945?

400

When Stalin blockaded West Berlin in 1948, the US responded with this bold strategy that lasted 11 months.

What is the Berlin Airlift?

400

This is the term for the US foreign policy goal of keeping communism from spreading to new countries.

What is containment?

400

The hydrogen bomb tested by the US in 1952 was this many times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

What is 1,000 times?

400

Air conditioning was so transformative that it made this region of the US livable year-round, driving explosive population growth in the 1950s.

What is the Sunbelt (Southwest / desert cities like Phoenix and Houston)?

500

This is what the four Allied powers agreed Germany must undergo: denazification, demilitarization, decartelization, and decentralization — collectively called this.

What are the Four D's?

500

NATO's Article 5 contains this key principle that made the Soviet Union think twice before attacking Western Europe.

What is 'an attack on one member is an attack on all'?

500

The spread of communism from Eastern Europe to China to Korea led US policymakers to fear this effect, which President Eisenhower described using a game piece metaphor.

What is the Domino Effect (Domino Theory)?

500

This Cold War doctrine held that a nuclear attack by either superpower would guarantee total destruction for both sides.

What is Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)?

500

The 1954 Supreme Court case that declared school segregation unconstitutional overturned this earlier 1896 'separate but equal' ruling.

What is Plessy v. Ferguson?