In a 1946 speech, Winston Churchill said an iron curtain had descended across Europe, dividing Soviet-dominated nations from the West.
Correct Answer
True
True. Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, given in Missouri, became a defining image of the divided continent. It signaled Western alarm at Soviet control of eastern Europe.
Category: Origins of the Cold War
Question 2
The Soviet Union accepted Marshall Plan aid and used it to rebuild eastern Europe.
Correct Answer
False
False. Stalin rejected Marshall Plan aid and kept the nations of eastern Europe from taking part. The aid went to Western European countries.
Category: Origins of the Cold War
Question 3
The National Security Act of 1947 created the Central Intelligence Agency.
Correct Answer
True
True. The act also created the National Security Council and a separate Department of the Air Force. It reorganized American defense for a long rivalry with the Soviet Union.
Category: Origins of the Cold War
Question 4
West Germany and East Germany were created as separate states in 1945, right after Germany surrendered.
Correct Answer
False
False. Germany was first divided into four occupation zones, and the two German states were formed in 1949. West Germany came first, and East Germany followed in October 1949.
Category: Origins of the Cold War
Question 5
Truman's Executive Order 9835 of 1947 set up loyalty investigations of federal employees.
Correct Answer
True
True. The order let the FBI investigate government workers suspected of disloyalty. Many states and cities set up loyalty boards of their own.
Category: Second Red Scare
Question 6
The House Un-American Activities Committee was created by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Correct Answer
False
False. HUAC was a committee of the House of Representatives, established in 1938, while McCarthy was a senator who rose to fame in 1950. HUAC's best-known postwar target was Hollywood.
Category: Second Red Scare
Question 7
During the Red Scare, many gay men and lesbians were forced out of government jobs on the claim that they were security risks.
Correct Answer
True
True. Anti-Communists argued that gay employees were vulnerable to blackmail, and psychiatrists of the time classified homosexuality as a mental illness. Many lost their careers in government.
Category: Second Red Scare
Question 8
Under the GI Bill, African American veterans could enroll at any college, including segregated southern universities.
Correct Answer
False
False. Black veterans could use the benefits only at schools that accepted Black students, which in the South meant historically Black colleges. Discrimination also limited their access to the bill's home loans.
Category: Postwar America
Question 9
After World War II, millions of women lost their wartime jobs, even though surveys showed many of them wanted to keep working.
Correct Answer
True
True. Employers dismissed many women to make room for returning veterans. Even so, women remained about one-third of the workforce in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Category: Postwar America
Question 10
Truman's Fair Deal succeeded in creating a national health insurance program.
Correct Answer
False
False. Congress rejected Truman's national health care proposal, with the American Medical Association campaigning heavily against it. Congress also blocked his civil rights proposals.
Category: Postwar America
Question 11
Dwight D. Eisenhower won the 1952 presidential election after pledging during the campaign that he would go to Korea.
Correct Answer
True
True. Eisenhower made the pledge in an October 1952 speech, which voters widely read as a promise to end the war, and he defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson. He visited Korea that December, and an armistice ending the fighting was signed in July 1953.
Category: Eisenhower Years
Question 12
The baby boom was a sharp drop in the American birth rate between 1946 and 1964.
Correct Answer
False
False. The baby boom was a sharp rise in births, producing the largest generation in American history up to that time. Its size shaped schools, suburbs and consumer markets for decades.
Category: Suburban Life
Question 13
Federal funding for an interstate highway system encouraged suburban growth and dependence on cars.
Correct Answer
True
True. New highways let commuters live in suburbs and drive to city jobs. Highway building also cut through urban working-class neighborhoods and drew money away from public transit.
Category: Suburban Life
Question 14
In 1956, the United States sent troops to help Hungary break free of Soviet control.
Correct Answer
False
False. When Hungarians rose against Soviet rule in 1956, the United States took no military action, and Soviet forces crushed the uprising. Eisenhower avoided direct conflict with the Soviets.
Category: Eisenhower Years
Question 15
In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower warned about the growing influence of the military-industrial complex.
Correct Answer
True
True. The former general cautioned that the combination of a huge defense establishment and arms industry could gain too much power. The phrase became a lasting part of American political language.
Category: Eisenhower Years
Question 16
Television remained a luxury for the wealthy throughout the 1950s, found in only a small share of homes.
Correct Answer
False
False. Television spread with remarkable speed, from under a tenth of households in 1950 to most households by the middle of the decade. Families arranged meals and evenings around it.
Category: Popular Culture
Question 17
Disc jockey Alan Freed helped popularize rock and roll on the radio in the early 1950s.
Correct Answer
True
True. Freed played the music on the radio in Cleveland, organized early rock and roll concerts there and later broadcast from New York. He helped bring the sound to young White audiences.
Category: Popular Culture
Question 18
Rock and roll grew out of country music alone, with little influence from African American musicians.
Correct Answer
False
False. Rock and roll drew heavily on rhythm and blues created mostly by Black artists, along with country and other styles. Performers such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard shaped the music.
Category: Popular Culture
Question 19
In Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), the Supreme Court ruled that courts could not enforce racially restrictive covenants on property.
Correct Answer
True
True. The covenants were private agreements barring sale of homes to Black buyers, and the ruling stopped courts from enforcing them. Discrimination in lending and sales continued in other forms.
Category: Civil Rights Movement
Question 20
President Eisenhower refused to intervene when White mobs blocked nine Black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.
Correct Answer
False
False. Eisenhower placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent the 101st Airborne Division to escort the Little Rock Nine. It was the first time since Reconstruction that federal troops protected Black Americans' rights in the South.
Category: Civil Rights Movement