Deck 26: America in a World at War

Question 1

In 1943,in a meeting in Casablanca,the Allies decided they would next invade

A) Cyprus.
B) France.
C) Sicily.
D) Corsica.
E) Greece.

Answer 1

Sicily.

Question 2

The Battle of Midway in 1942

A) saw the United States suffer great losses.
B) was a stunning defeat for the Japanese navy.
C) lasted four days.
D) both lasted four days and was a stunning defeat for the Japanese navy.
E) All these answers are correct.

Answer 2

All these answers are correct.

Question 3

In World War II,one of the primary American commanders in the Pacific was

A) Dwight Eisenhower.
B) Omar Bradley.
C) Chester Nimitz.
D) George Marshall.
E) George Patton.

Answer 3

Chester Nimitz.

Question 4

The Allied decisions that delayed an invasion of France

A) left the Soviet Union deeply embittered.
B) put the Soviet Union in a better position to control eastern Europe.
C) occurred after the Soviet Union had won a significant victory in Stalingrad.
D) both put the Soviet Union in a better position to control eastern Europe, and left the Soviet Union deeply embittered.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 5

During World War II,the United States Army chief of staff was

A) Douglas MacArthur.
B) George Marshall.
C) Omar Bradley.
D) Dwight Eisenhower.
E) George Patton.

Question 6

The U.S.government acquired definite knowledge of the Holocaust

A) prior to World War II beginning in Europe.
B) before the U.S. had entered the war.
C) as early as 1942.
D) only in the last year of the war.
E) only after the war was over.

Question 7

Which of the following is true of organized American labor during World War II?

A) No major union went on strike.
B) "Wildcat" strikes were the most common.
C) Unions accepted a freeze on wages until the war ended.
D) Many states passed laws expanding the influence of unions.
E) Opposition to strikes was led by the influential United Mine Workers.

Question 8

During World War II,Allied bombers targeted

A) the crematoria at Auschwitz.
B) the railroad lines leading to Auschwitz.
C) the guard towers and Nazi bunkers at Auschwitz.
D) both the crematories at Auschwitz and the railroad lines leading to Auschwitz.
E) None of these answers is correct.

Question 9

Between 1939 and 1945,the federal budget of the United States

A) halved.
B) doubled.
C) tripled.
D) rose over five-fold.
E) rose over ten-fold.

Question 10

During World War II,the labor force of the United States

A) saw 15 million people leave civilian labor for the armed forces.
B) saw the supply of civilian labor decline by 25 percent.
C) was forced to contend with a large labor surplus.
D) saw both 15 million people leave civilian labor for the armed forces and the supply of civilian labor decline by 25 percent.
E) None of these answers is correct.

Question 11

After 1943,the United States advanced on Japan primarily with the aid of forces from

A) England and France.
B) the Soviet Union and China.
C) the Dutch and the Soviet Union.
D) England and the Soviet Union.
E) Australia and New Zealand.

Question 12

In 1943,the country that pressed for an immediate Allied invasion of France against Germany was

A) the Soviet Union.
B) China.
C) Great Britain.
D) the United States.
E) Canada.

Question 13

The Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942

A) saw the Americans take the offensive for the first time.
B) saw the United States forced to withdraw its naval forces.
C) marked the major turning point of the war in the Pacific.
D) saw the Japanese lose most of its aircraft carriers.
E) marked the first important victory by the United States against Japan.

Question 14

During World War II,organized labor in the United States

A) lost membership as wages rose across most industries.
B) frequently used the threats of strikes to obtain higher wages.
C) agreed to freeze union membership and wages until the war was over.
D) won automatic union memberships for new defense-plant workers.
E) won a significant victory with the passage of the Smith-Connally Act.

Question 15

Regarding European Jewish refugees,between 1939 and 1945,the United States

A) refused to accept large numbers of refugees.
B) won an agreement by England to accept several thousand refugees.
C) made many efforts to help refugees escape the Nazis but not have them enter the United States.
D) denied the Nazis were targeting Jews for murder.
E) rescinded the provisions of the 1924 National Origins Act dealing with Jewish immigrants.

Question 16

During World War II,the regional impact of government spending was the greatest in the

A) Northeast.
B) Midwest.
C) South.
D) East.
E) West.

Question 17

During World War II,the first Axis country to be defeated was

A) Germany.
B) Spain.
C) Austria.
D) Japan.
E) Italy.

Question 18

In 1942,in the North African campaign against the Nazis,the

A) Americans advanced under the command of Omar Bradley.
B) Americans successfully regrouped from a defeat at Kasserine Pass.
C) Germans suffered a major defeat at Stalingrad.
D) Americans pushed the Germans out of Egypt.
E) British lost a key early battle at El Alamein.

Question 19

In World War II,the main American strategy to fight Japan was to

A) mount two offensive campaigns to attack the Japanese from two directions.
B) concentrate U.S. forces into one large offensive moving west from the Marshall Islands.
C) quickly recapture the Midway Islands from the Japanese.
D) establish a strong defensive position in the Solomon Islands to lure in the Japanese.
E) encourage the Japanese navy to overextend itself past the Gilbert Islands, then attack from behind.

Question 20

In 1942-1943,the British and American war effort against the Nazis concentrated on

A) freeing France from German control.
B) supporting the Russians.
C) fighting in North Africa and southern Europe.
D) protecting England.
E) stopping the Holocaust.

Question 21

The 1943 "zoot-suit riots" in Los Angeles

A) resulted from tensions between the African American and Mexican American communities.
B) led the city to prohibit the wearing of zoot suits.
C) began when off-duty Mexican American soldiers refused to wear their military uniforms.
D) both began when off-duty Mexican American soldiers refused to wear their military uniforms, and led the city to prohibit the wearing of zoot suits.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 22

During World War II,the Fair Employment Practices Commission was created

A) to help southern African Americans move to northern cities to take war jobs.
B) by President Roosevelt to stop black protesters from marching on the capital.
C) after serious racial rioting broke out in several northern industrial cities.
D) and led byA. Philip Randolph.
E) in response to significant protests led by the Congress of Racial Equality.

Question 23

During World War II,Chinese Americans

A) were drafted in a higher proportion than any other national group.
B) received a favorable image in U.S. government propaganda.
C) saw the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts.
D) both received a favorable image in U.S. government propaganda and saw the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 24

During World War II,in the United States,all of the following social indicators experienced a rise in their rate of occurrence EXCEPT

A) the marriage rate.
B) high school enrollment.
C) the divorce rate.
D) the juvenile crime rate.
E) the birth rate.

Question 25

During World War II,American women who worked outside the home

A) tended to be older than women who worked in the past.
B) were barred from unions.
C) were not allowed to have children under the age of three in their care.
D) both tended to be older than women who worked in the past, and were not allowed to have children under the age of three in their care.
E) None of these answers is correct.

Question 26

In 1943,to simplify tax collections,Congress enacted

A) automatic payroll deductions.
B) a short form for paying income taxes.
C) a sales tax.
D) a flat tax.
E) an earned income tax credit.

Question 27

In 1942,the United States and Mexico agreed to the braceros program,which

A) increased the number of Mexican immigrants the United States would accept as new citizens.
B) allowed U.S. businesses to establish war production factories in Mexico.
C) admitted Mexican contract laborers into the United States for a limited time.
D) accepted Mexican citizens into the U.S. armed forces.
E) eliminated the tariff on goods produced in Mexico.

Question 28

During World War II,American shoppers

A) faced many shortages of consumer goods.
B) did not buy as many magazines, as part of the war effort.
C) had less money to spend than they had had the decade before.
D) had less money to spend than they had had the decade before, but did not buy as many magazines, as part of the war effort.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 29

During World War II,the effectiveness of German U-boats and underwater mines was greatly reduced by the development of

A) acoustic countermeasures.
B) sonar.
C) centimetric radar.
D) advanced cavity magnetron valves.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 30

Over the course of World War II,inflation in the United States

A) remained low before 1941.
B) was much less serious a problem than it had been during World War I.
C) was largely uncontrolled by the federal government.
D) was at its highest in the last year of the war.
E) was less a concern than fears of deflation.

Question 31

During World War II,the U.S.military

A) used quotas to limit the number of black servicemen in the military.
B) excluded blacks from combat duty.
C) began to relax its practices of racial segregation.
D) allowed blacks into all branches of the military for the first time.
E) doubled the number of black servicemen to 200,000.

Question 32

During World War II,the War Production Board

A) was maintained under the auspices of the Department of Labor.
B) was directed by Roosevelt ally Leon Henderson.
C) had complete control over military purchases.
D) favored large over small contractors.
E) won the support of small business.

Question 33

In 1942,when the United States interned Japanese Americans in "relocation centers,"

A) all of the affected Japanese were American citizens.
B) a powerful popular movement sprung up to protest the internments.
C) all of those affected were first-generation Japanese immigrants.
D) the move was protested by California Attorney General Earl Warren.
E) there was no evidence that the Japanese Americans were a domestic security risk.

Question 34

All of the following were Allied advances in intelligence-gathering in World War II EXCEPT the

A) creation of the Purple machine for coded communications.
B) capturing of an Enigma machine.
C) creation of the first programmable, digital computer.
D) breaking of the German codes early in the war.
E) breaking of Japanese codes before American entry into the war.

Question 35

All of the following statements regarding the internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II are true EXCEPT that

A) the United States government has never admitted wrongdoing.
B) the order for internment was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1944.
C) most of those interned lost all their property and possessions.
D) the internment camps were essentially prisons.
E) government officials claimed the camps were places where the Japanese could be socialized and "Americanized."

Question 36

During World War II,the National Defense Research Committee

A) had, by 1941, pushed the U.S. into a position of technological superiority over Germany.
B) funded less research than its predecessor had during World War I.
C) was headed by a scientist who was a pioneer in the development of the computer.
D) concentrated its work on developing an atomic bomb.
E) received more private funding than government money.

Question 37

During World War II,American Indians

A) saw government war contracts bring a higher standard of living to many reservations.
B) were excluded from military service.
C) were pushed out of white society and back onto the reservations.
D) saw war work spread to almost every Indian reservation in the United States.
E) saw the war effort undermine efforts to revitalize tribal traditions.

Question 38

The Smith-Connally Act of 1943

A) was opposed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
B) authorized the president to seize a war factory where workers had gone on strike.
C) passed as a result of actions taken by the United Mine Workers.
D) both was opposed by President Franklin Roosevelt and passed as a result of actions taken by the United Mine Workers.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 39

During World War II,Germany held the technological edge over the Allies in

A) centimetric radar.
B) rocket-propelled bombs.
C) ocean mine detection.
D) aircraft bombers.
E) intelligence gathering.

Question 40

During World War II,the Allied development of the Gee navigation system

A) was first used in the last months of the war.
B) sent a sonic message telling pilots they were in range of their targets.
C) used electronic pulses to plot course locations.
D) proved ineffective at sea.
E) raised the accuracy rate of night-bombing raids to 30 percent.

Question 41

The 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf

A) was the largest naval engagement in history.
B) saw Japanese forces sink four American aircraft carriers.
C) was the only time German and Japanese naval forces fought together.
D) included the American capture of Okinawa.
E) resulted in the American capture of Tinian, Guam, and Saipan.

Question 42

The United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan in August 1945 after

A) the Japanese failed to provide a response to the first bomb.
B) the Soviet Union announced it would not enter into war against Japan.
C) the Japanese government announced that the United States had only one atomic bomb.
D) the emperor of Japan asked the United States for more time to consider surrendering.
E) the emperor of Japan declared that his country would fight to the death.

Question 43

In February 1945,an Allied bombing attack on Dresden,Germany

A) destroyed 75 percent of the previously undamaged city.
B) killed approximately 135,000 people.
C) resulted in mostly civilian casualties.
D) both killed approximately 135,000 people and resulted in mostly civilian casualties.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 44

Prior to ordering the use of an atomic bomb against Japan,President Harry Truman

A) sent evidence of a test explosion to the Japanese government.
B) issued an ultimatum to Japan to surrender or face utter devastation.
C) warned the Japanese about the atomic bomb but sent no evidence of its effect.
D) told Japan to evacuate Hiroshima or face the consequences.
E) did not send any kind of message to Japan.

Question 45

In April 1945,American and British forces halted their advance on Germany at the Elbe River

A) because their supply lines had become overextended.
B) to wait for the Russian army to arrive.
C) due to fierce German resistance.
D) at the announcement that President Franklin Roosevelt had died.
E) because all bridges over the river had been destroyed.

Question 46

The Japanese surrender to the United States

A) was announced a few days after a second atomic bomb had been dropped.
B) was formally signed on the American battleship Missouri.
C) occurred on September 2, 1945.
D) was both formally signed on the American battleship Missouri and announced a few days after a second atomic bomb had been dropped.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 47

A significant issue in the 1944 election was

A) America's relationship with the Soviet Union.
B) corruption charges involving the White House.
C) the strategy of the war.
D) civil rights.
E) the domestic economy.

Question 48

In mid-1945,evidence of Japan's desperation to continue the war included

A) the sending of thousands of pilots on suicide missions.
B) nighttime attacks by Japanese troops against American lines.
C) the loss of over 100,000 Japanese lives at Okinawa.
D) both the sending of thousands of pilots on suicide missions, and nighttime attacks by Japanese troops against American lines.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 49

In 1939,the first steps toward the creation of an atomic bomb were taken by

A) the Soviet Union.
B) Great Britain.
C) the United States.
D) Japan.
E) Nazi Germany.

Question 50

Most employed women during the war worked in

A) the service sector.
B) industrial jobs.
C) the factory.
D) military support positions
E) child care.

Question 51

The Battle of the Bulge

A) began in the spring of 1945.
B) saw the American army drive deep into Germany.
C) ended serious German resistance in the west.
D) both saw the American army drive deep into Germany and was the last major battle on the western front.
E) None of these answers is correct.

Question 52

All of the following statements regarding the Allied development of an atomic bomb during World War II are true EXCEPT that

A) the program was code-named the Manhattan Project.
B) plutonium was a practical fuel for the bomb.
C) the program proceeded at a faster pace than had been expected.
D) the government secretly poured nearly $2 billion into the project.
E) Albert Einstein was in charge of the development program.

Question 53

In August 1944,the Allies liberated from German occupation the city of

A) Rome.
B) Warsaw.
C) Stockholm.
D) Paris.
E) Amsterdam.

Question 54

All of the following statements regarding the Allied invasion of France in June 1944 are true EXCEPT that

A) the attack involved perhaps the largest number of naval vessels and armaments ever assembled in one place.
B) the landing was made across the narrowest part of the English Channel.
C) Allied paratroopers were dropped behind German lines prior to the beach landings.
D) within a week, German forces had been dislodged from most of the Normandy coast.
E) American, British, and Canadian forces stormed the beaches on June 6, 1944.

Question 55

In February 1944,American naval forces won a series of victories in the Marshall Islands,under the command of

A) Dwight Eisenhower.
B) Douglas MacArthur.
C) Omar Bradley.
D) Joseph Stilwell.
E) Chester Nimitz.

Question 56

The costliest battle in the history of the United States Marines Corps was the Battle of

A) Iwo Jima.
B) Leyte Gulf.
C) Okinawa.
D) Midway.
E) Guadalcanal.

Question 57

During World War II,Congress abolished the

A) Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
B) Works Progress Administration (WPA).
C) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
D) CCC and WPA.
E) WPA and FDIC.

Question 58

During World War II,the United States military services

A) saw the major purpose of the USO as bringing new recruits into the armed forces.
B) tolerated homosexuality.
C) quietly tolerated illicit heterosexual relationships.
D) encouraged USO women to form relationships with servicemen.
E) banned the practice of painting bathing beauties on the nosecones of fighter planes.

Question 59

In the 1944 elections,

A) Republicans gained control of the Senate.
B) President Franklin Roosevelt was too ill to campaign.
C) Democrats increased their control of the House.
D) Thomas Dewey nearly won the electoral vote.
E) Henry Wallace was elected vice president.

Question 60

The first atomic explosion in history took place in 1945 in

A) Hiroshima, Japan.
B) the Bikini Islands.
C) Alamogordo, New Mexico.
D) the Salt Lake desert in Utah.
E) Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Question 61

By the end of 1942,Allied technology had caught up with that of Germany and Japan.

Question 62

During World War II,around 6 million Americans joined the armed forces.

Question 63

Native American languages were useful in American military communications.

Question 64

The braceros program allowed Mexicans to enter the United States and become citizens if they agreed to work in war plants for the duration of the war.

Question 65

Germany's rocket-propelled bombs caused more psychological harm than actual damage in England.

Question 66

In June 1942,the United States gained control of the central Pacific with the Battle of Midway.

Question 67

World War II gave a great boost to union membership,even though the government extracted "no-strike" pledges from unions for the duration of the war.

Question 68

The Soviet Union favored the Allied African campaign as a way to divert German resources from the eastern front.

Question 69

The U.S.government consistently resisted calls to make an Allied effort to save Jews caught in the Holocaust.

Question 70

The Allied invasion of Sicily led to the collapse of the Mussolini government.

Question 71

The Allied introduction of an "acoustic" mine was a major advance in naval warfare.

Question 72

The repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts in 1943 resulted in a flood of Chinese immigrants into the United States.

Question 73

Despite the power of prewar isolationism,there was a large degree of unity once the United States was involved in World War II.

Question 74

Britain and the Soviet Union were not in agreement on where to strike at the Nazis.

Question 75

At the start of World War II,black leaders carried out a massive march on Washington to call attention to racial discrimination.

Question 76

Congress enacted a system of automatic tax withholding through payroll deductions as a wartime measure.

Question 77

American intelligence broke the Japanese coding system prior to Pearl Harbor.

Question 78

Which of the following is true of casualties in World War II?

A) Fourteen million combatants died.
B) More than a million Americans were killed or wounded.
C) Casualties were relatively light in the United States, compared to those of other countries.
D) The war had cost the lives of 322,000 Americans.
E) All these answers are correct.

Question 79

The federal government's budget in 1945 had increased more than ten-fold from 1939.

Question 80

African Americans' strategy for social and economic improvement during World War II was to gain favor with the Roosevelt administration rather than make demands of it.