What name did John F. Kennedy give to his domestic program of reforms after taking office in 1961?
New Frontier
✓
Great Society
Fair Deal
New Freedom
Correct Answer
New Frontier
Kennedy called his agenda the New Frontier, a set of proposals on civil rights, health care for the elderly, education and space exploration, many of which stalled in Congress during his presidency. Great Society was the name Lyndon Johnson gave to his own reform program after Kennedy's death. Fair Deal was Harry Truman's postwar domestic program. New Freedom was Woodrow Wilson's reform program of the 1910s.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 2
What was the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961?
A Soviet effort to place nuclear missiles in Cuba
A failed landing in Cuba by CIA-trained Cuban exiles
✓
A U.S. naval blockade to stop Soviet cargo ships
A successful revolt that first brought Castro to power
Correct Answer
A failed landing in Cuba by CIA-trained Cuban exiles
About 1,400 Cuban exiles trained by the CIA landed in Cuba expecting a popular uprising against Fidel Castro; none came, Kennedy withheld further air strikes, and most of the invaders were captured within days. A Soviet effort to place nuclear missiles in Cuba led to the 1962 missile crisis instead. A U.S. naval blockade to stop Soviet cargo ships was Kennedy's response in that 1962 crisis. A successful revolt that first brought Castro to power happened in 1959, before Kennedy took office.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 3
To help end the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the United States made what private concession to the Soviet Union?
It agreed to lift its trade embargo on Cuba
It agreed to withdraw its troops from West Berlin
It agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey
✓
It agreed to recognize Castro's government formally
Correct Answer
It agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey
Khrushchev removed the Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for a public U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret promise to remove American missiles from Turkey. Lifting the trade embargo on Cuba was not part of the deal; the embargo continued for decades. Withdrawing troops from West Berlin was never offered. Formal recognition of Castro's government did not come out of the crisis.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 4
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara promoted a strategy of flexible response. What was its goal?
To rely mainly on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation
To withdraw American forces from most overseas bases
To replace the regular army with civilian volunteers
To give the president military options short of nuclear war
✓
Correct Answer
To give the president military options short of nuclear war
Flexible response built up conventional and counterinsurgency forces, such as the Green Berets, so the United States could answer a crisis without going straight to nuclear weapons. Relying mainly on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation describes Eisenhower's earlier approach, which flexible response was meant to replace. Withdrawing American forces from overseas bases was not part of it. Replacing the regular army with civilian volunteers was never proposed.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 5
Which Kennedy program sent American volunteers to developing nations to work on projects such as teaching, farming and health care?
Peace Corps
✓
Alliance for Progress
Job Corps
Marshall Plan
Correct Answer
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps, whose first volunteers went abroad in 1961, used American goodwill and skills as a form of soft power in the Cold War. The Alliance for Progress was Kennedy's program of economic aid to Latin America, not a volunteer corps. The Job Corps was a War on Poverty job training program at home. The Marshall Plan was Truman's aid program for rebuilding postwar Europe.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 6
What did the Warren Commission conclude about the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963?
Cuban agents planned the shooting
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
✓
Several gunmen fired from different places
Organized crime figures hired the killer
Correct Answer
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
The commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, found that Oswald fired the shots on his own. Conspiracy theories persisted, but no credible evidence has shown that Cuban agents planned the shooting. The commission rejected the idea that several gunmen fired from different places. It also found no evidence that organized crime figures hired the killer.
Category: Kennedy Years
Question 7
Medicare, created by the Social Security Act of 1965, provides health insurance for which group?
Low-income families of any age
Military veterans and their families
Americans aged 65 and older
✓
Children enrolled in public schools
Correct Answer
Americans aged 65 and older
Medicare covers older Americans, and the American Medical Association had opposed it as government interference in medicine. Low-income families of any age are covered by Medicaid, a separate companion program. Military veterans and their families receive care through veterans' programs, not Medicare. Children enrolled in public schools were not the target of Medicare.
Category: Great Society
Question 8
What did the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 do?
It barred most new immigration from Asian nations
It created the first national-origins quota system
It granted legal status to undocumented immigrants
It ended quotas that had favored northern and western Europeans
✓
Correct Answer
It ended quotas that had favored northern and western Europeans
The 1965 law replaced the national-origins quotas of the 1920s with a system favoring family ties and needed skills, which opened the way for large Asian and Latin American immigrant communities. Barring most immigration from Asian nations was what the older laws had done, and the 1965 act lifted those restrictions. Creating the first national-origins quota system was the work of the 1920s laws. Granting legal status to undocumented immigrants came in a separate law in 1986.
Category: Great Society
Question 9
The Job Corps, Volunteers in Service to America and the Community Action Program all grew out of which 1964 law at the center of Johnson's War on Poverty?
Economic Opportunity Act
✓
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Housing and Urban Development Act
Social Security Act
Correct Answer
Economic Opportunity Act
The Economic Opportunity Act created the Office of Economic Opportunity, first led by Sargent Shriver, to run job training and community programs for the poor. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 sent federal aid to schools. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 funded city housing and rent subsidies. The Social Security Act dates to 1935, and its 1965 amendments created Medicare.
Category: Great Society
Question 10
Which agency did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 create to combat discrimination in hiring and employment?
Commission on Civil Rights
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
✓
National Labor Relations Board
Fair Employment Practices Committee
Correct Answer
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Title VII of the 1964 act banned job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce it. The Commission on Civil Rights was created earlier, by the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The National Labor Relations Board dates from the New Deal and oversees union elections. The Fair Employment Practices Committee was created by Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.
Category: Great Society
Question 11
Which practice did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspend in the states it covered?
Segregation in hotels, restaurants and theaters
Discrimination in the sale and rental of housing
Literacy tests used to keep Black citizens from voting
✓
Racial segregation of public schools
Correct Answer
Literacy tests used to keep Black citizens from voting
The Voting Rights Act suspended literacy tests and other discriminatory voting rules in the mostly Southern jurisdictions it covered (Congress suspended literacy tests nationwide in 1970 and banned them permanently in 1975), and Black voter registration in the South rose sharply soon after. Segregation in hotels, restaurants and theaters was banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Discrimination in the sale and rental of housing was banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Racial segregation of public schools had been ruled unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
Category: Great Society
Question 12
What power did the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964 give President Johnson?
Drafting college students without any deferments
Declaring war on North Vietnam on his own authority
Negotiating a peace treaty without Senate approval
Using military force in Vietnam without a declaration of war
✓
Correct Answer
Using military force in Vietnam without a declaration of war
After reports of North Vietnamese attacks on American destroyers, Congress, with only two votes against, authorized the president to take whatever military action he judged necessary; Johnson used it to escalate the war sharply. Drafting college students without deferments was not part of the resolution. Declaring war was not part of it either, and Congress never formally declared war in Vietnam. Negotiating a peace treaty without Senate approval was not addressed.
Category: Vietnam Escalation
Question 13
Why is the Tet Offensive of January 1968 considered a turning point in the Vietnam War?
It shook American confidence that the war was being won
✓
It forced the United States to sign a peace treaty
It gave North Vietnam lasting control of Saigon
It brought Chinese troops openly into the fighting
Correct Answer
It shook American confidence that the war was being won
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces struck cities across South Vietnam, and although U.S. and South Vietnamese troops retook every position, the scale of the attack contradicted official claims that victory was near and deepened public doubts about the war. A peace treaty was not signed until 1973. Saigon was recaptured, and North Vietnam did not take the city until 1975. Chinese troops did not openly enter the fighting.
Category: Vietnam Escalation
Question 14
In February 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T began a wave of protests across the South by doing what?
Riding interstate buses into the Deep South
Sitting at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter
✓
Marching from Selma toward Montgomery
Boycotting the city buses of Montgomery
Correct Answer
Sitting at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter
The Greensboro sit-in spread within two months to dozens of cities, and within a year many cities had desegregated at least some public facilities. Riding interstate buses into the Deep South describes the Freedom Rides of 1961. Marching from Selma toward Montgomery was the 1965 voting rights campaign. Boycotting the city buses of Montgomery was the 1955 to 1956 boycott that made King a national figure.
Category: Civil Rights Movement
Question 15
Which organization did veteran activist Ella Baker help college students form in April 1960?
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Congress of Racial Equality
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
✓
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Correct Answer
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Baker encouraged the young sit-in leaders to build their own group run by grassroots participation rather than by a single leader, and SNCC was the result. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was King's organization, where Baker had been the first staff member. The Congress of Racial Equality was founded in the 1940s. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People dates from 1909.
Category: Civil Rights Movement
Question 16
What was the purpose of the Freedom Rides that began in May 1961?
To register Black voters across rural Mississippi
To integrate the University of Mississippi
To support striking sanitation workers in Memphis
To test rulings against segregation in interstate travel
✓
Correct Answer
To test rulings against segregation in interstate travel
Riders sponsored by CORE and SNCC traveled south on interstate buses to see whether Supreme Court rulings against segregated travel would be enforced, and they met mob violence in South Carolina and Alabama. Registering Black voters across rural Mississippi was the aim of Freedom Summer in 1964. Integrating the University of Mississippi was James Meredith's effort in 1962. Supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis brought King to that city in 1968.
Category: Civil Rights Movement
Question 17
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" chiefly as a reply to which critics?
White clergymen who urged activists to wait
✓
Black nationalists who rejected nonviolence
Federal officials who opposed the protests
Northern students who joined the campaign
Correct Answer
White clergymen who urged activists to wait
Eight White Alabama clergymen had called the Birmingham demonstrations unwise and untimely, and King answered that justice too long delayed is justice denied. Black nationalists who rejected nonviolence were not the audience of the letter. Federal officials who opposed the protests were not the critics he answered. Northern students who joined the campaign were supporters, not critics.
Category: Civil Rights Movement
Question 18
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded which group in Oakland, California, in 1966?
Nation of Islam
Black Panther Party
✓
Organization of Afro-American Unity
Congress of Racial Equality
Correct Answer
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party called for Black self-defense, patrolled neighborhoods to watch for police brutality, and ran community programs under its Ten Point Program. The Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 and preached separation from White society. The Organization of Afro-American Unity was founded by Malcolm X in 1964 after he left the Nation of Islam. The Congress of Racial Equality was an older interracial group devoted to nonviolent direct action.
Category: Black Power and Chicano Activism
Question 19
Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta won national attention for California farmworkers mainly through which tactic?
An armed occupation of federal lands
A campaign of lunch counter sit-ins
A nationwide consumer boycott of grapes
✓
A lawsuit against segregated schools
Correct Answer
A nationwide consumer boycott of grapes
The grape strike begun in 1965 by Filipino and Mexican American workers was backed by a boycott that urged consumers across the country not to buy California grapes, and growers recognized the union in 1970. An armed occupation of federal lands was not their tactic. A campaign of lunch counter sit-ins was a tactic of Black students in the South. A lawsuit against segregated schools describes earlier cases such as Mendez v. Westminster.
Category: Black Power and Chicano Activism
Question 20
The Port Huron Statement of 1962, drafted largely by Tom Hayden, set out the goals of which organization?
National Organization for Women
Free Speech Movement
Young Americans for Freedom
Students for a Democratic Society
✓
Correct Answer
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society, founded at the University of Michigan in 1960, called in the Port Huron Statement for participatory democracy and an attack on inequality, and it became a leading voice of the New Left. The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 to pursue women's equality. The Free Speech Movement arose at Berkeley in 1964. Young Americans for Freedom was a conservative student group.
Category: New Left and Students