Deck 25: Prosperity and Liberty Under the Shadow

Question 1

How did most participating scientists feel about the Manhattan Project?

A)They did not expect it to be successful.
B)The majority worked on the project against their will.
C)Most of the scientists had reservations about the goal of their mission.
D)Most were enthusiastic about the merits of the bomb as a weapon of peace.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

How did Americans feel about their new president, Harry S Truman, after Franklin Roosevelt's death on April 2, 1945?

A)Truman had a horrible reputation as an enemy of unions.
B)As a longtime friend and aide to Roosevelt, Truman enjoyed popular trust.
C)Americans knew him as a war hero and commander of an aircraft carrier.
D)He was a mystery to most Americans who knew little or nothing about him.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Who of the following most shaped Harry S. Truman's foreign policy?

A)W. Averell Harriman
B)Robert Taft
C)Vyachslaw Molotov
D)Henry Wallace

Answer 3

A

Question 4

How did Soviet leader Joseph Stalin respond to Truman's revelation that the US had a "new weapon of great power" in July 1945?

A)He was in disbelief.
B)He simply nodded.
C)He congratulated Truman.
D)He stormed out in anger.

Question 5

Between 1940 and 1945 the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by over

A)27 percent.
B)57 percent.
C)107 percent.
D)170 percent.

Question 6

Why had communism been so popular in Europe between 1935 and 1945?

A)The exploitation of the industrial working class had reached its pinnacle then.
B)European industries were at their weakest in those years.
C)Local communists had been the key opposition to Nazis.
D)By their very nature, Europeans rejected capitalist individualism.

Question 7

Why did President Harry S. Truman step up his anti-Communist rhetoric in March 1947?

A)He wanted to impress voters for the next upcoming election.
B)News of the Soviet nuclear bomb raised tensions worldwide.
C)He had to convince Congress to support massive spending on a worldwide anti-Communist campaign.
D)Truman wanted to send a signal to the Soviet Union, which was trying to force West Berlin to surrender to Soviet troops.

Question 8

Which event in June 1950 seemed to confirm the existence of a world communist conspiracy?

A)the Berlin blockade
B)the invasion of South Korea by communist North Korea
C)the successful detonation of a Soviet nuclear bomb
D)the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik

Question 9

How many nations sent troops to South Korea in 1950?

A)One, the United States
B)Three: the United States, Great Britain, France
C)Seventeen nations
D)All the member-nations of the UN

Question 10

Why did President Harry S. Truman fire General Douglas MacArthur?

A)MacArthur had openly voiced sympathy with North Koreans.
B)MacArthur stated he would run as the Republican presidential candidate.
C)MacArthur had accused Truman of incompetence and political posturing.
D)MacArthur was found to have had an extramarital affair with his secretary.

Question 11

How did both liberals and conservatives define communism in Cold War America?

A)as the abolition of private property
B)as an economy ruled by unions
C)as the opposite of democracy
D)as the nationalization of major industries

Question 12

Why did so many Americans agree to dramatic restrictions of civil liberties during the Cold War?

A)They understood that this was a necessary sacrifice for their protection against communism.
B)They felt confident that they still enjoyed sufficient civil liberties to protect themselves against fascism.
C)Americans acquiesced largely out of a pronounced fear of communism.
D)Whites realized that they themselves would not be targeted, and that only African-Americans would.

Question 13

Who of the following was a friendly witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)?

A)Ronald Reagan
B)John F. Kennedy
C)Alger Hiss
D)Klaus Fuchs

Question 14

On what count were those who refused to cooperate with HUAC hearings sentenced to federal prison?

A)treason
B)conspiracy
C)contempt of Congress
D)resisting authorities

Question 15

The new prosperity that Americans enjoyed after World War II depended largely on

A)the globalization of the international economy.
B)high tariff barriers against Japan.
C)the export of raw materials to developing nations.
D)low wages for American workers.

Question 16

What prompted the boom in higher education in postwar America?

A)the need for skilled labor force
B)the immigration of scientists from Europe
C)the expansion of civil rights to African-Americans
D)government-funded college tuition for veterans

Question 17

According to the Cold War propaganda of the US government, American women could best fight communism

A)as members of the new all-volunteer army.
B)as skilled workers and defense industries.
C)as homemakers and caretakers.
D)as members of the Women's Army Corps (WACS).

Question 18

While the entire US experienced significant demographic shifts during and after World War II, the greatest changes took place in

A)the Northeast.
B)the Midwest.
C)the American West.
D)the Appalachians.

Question 19

Which of the following best explains the clustering of military bases throughout the Southeast?

A)dry desert conditions
B)friendly climate
C)solid unions
D)powerful southern politicians

Question 20

What dramatic display could Las Vegas residents view regularly after 1952?

A)Cirque de Soleil
B)nude revues
C)nuclear mushroom clouds
D)casino tourism

Question 21

What prompted the fourfold increase in the Mexican-born population in California after World War II?

A)the loss of Japanese-Americans due to internment
B)the opportunities in higher education thanks to the G.I. Bill
C)loosened border controls and opportunities in the U.S. economy
D)the breakdown of democracy at the beginning of the drug wars in Mexico

Question 22

What convinced Congress to pass a Displaced Persons Act in 1948?

A)the exodus of European Jews to Israel
B)the independence of the Philippines
C)the growing number of Eastern Europeans fleeing Soviet control
D)nationalist independence movements in India and Africa

Question 23

Starting in the 1940s, which of the following magazines was a new popular choice at newsstands from Manhattan to Los Angeles?

A)Worker's World
B)Newsweek
C)Field and Stream
D)Ladies Home Journal

Question 24

During the war, the NAACP launched a widely publicized "Double V" campaign against the evils of

A)vice and venereal disease.
B)vulgarity and vanity.
C)vindictiveness and vengeance.
D)Fascism and racism.

Question 25

How did conservative citizen's groups justify their opposition to the expansion of civil rights for African Americans?

A)They denounced civil rights reform as radical liberalism and communism.
B)They equated civil rights reform with racism.
C)They viewed civil rights in the same was as they viewed European anti-Semitism.
D)They considered civil rights an open violation of the New Testament.

Question 26

Why was Southern segregation a foreign-policy problem in the postwar years?

A)African nations were less likely to invest their money in the South.
B)The United States risked criticism in the United Nations Security Council.
C)Southern blacks were likely to emigrate to the Soviet Union and Africa.
D)It undermined U.S. criticism of the denial of civil liberties in Soviet-controlled nations.

Question 27

Why did Medgar Evers receive death threats?

A)He had shared nuclear secrets with East Germany.
B)An African American, he tried to register to vote in Mississippi.
C)He tried to embarrass Martin Luther King Jr. with details about his infidelity.
D)After his spy-plane got shot down over Siberia, he became a willing informant to the Soviet Union.

Question 28

Which of the following effectively ended the practice of cotton sharecropping in the American South after World War II?

A)the Agricultural Adjustment Agency
B)the discovery of nylon
C)the perfection of the mechanical cotton picker
D)the introduction of Egyptian cotton

Question 29

What recognition did George C. Marshall receive for his European Recovery Plan?

A)Congress made him secretary of state.
B)President Eisenhower nominated him to the United States Supreme Court.
C)He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
D)He was appointed as the General Secretary of the United Nations.

Question 30

U.S. leaders were convinced that in order to build and secure the prosperity of Western Europe there had to be

A)an end to the Cold War.
B)a uniform European currency.
C)an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
D)secure access to Middle Eastern oil reserves.

Question 31

Why was the "ground zero" of the first nuclear explosion in July 1945 near Los Alamos, New Mexico, covered with glass?

A)Larger than expected, the explosion destroyed a town with houses that still had many glass windows.
B)The first nuclear bomb was embedded in one ton of glass to allow special cameras to record the nuclear meltdown.
C)The detonation had shattered the glass of nearby homes and vehicles and sucked the debris to the center.
D)The heat of the explosion melted the sandy surface of the crater and turned it into glass.

Question 32

Which of the following best assesses the final capture of Berlin in April 1945?

A)The Red Army marched into the city without any opposition.
B)The young boys and old men that remained of the Wehrmacht offered little opposition.
C)The fight for the city remained brutal to the end.
D)U.S. forces successfully pushed back the Red Army and captured the Reichstag.

Question 33

What led to the slaughter of a quarter-million Polish civilians in Warsaw in 1943?

A)Germany began the use of chemical gas.
B)The Polish resistance launched an attack, unaware that the nearby Red Army was not going to join in.
C)Warsaw had been able to withstand German attacks for years, but it finally fell that year and became a Nazi death camp.
D)Withdrawing Soviet troops slashed and burned every resource they had to leave behind, which also involved the killing of civilians.

Question 34

Why did President Harry S. Truman not want the Soviet Union to join in the invasion of Japan?

A)He feared that the Red Army would commit atrocities against civilians.
B)He predicted that the United States have to divide Tokyo the way it had to divide Berlin.
C)He was concerned that the Red Army would then support communist forces in China.
D)He thought that the Russian people had suffered enough casualties on the Eastern front against Germany.

Question 35

How did World War II change the course of history in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America?

A)It prompted debates about militarization and national security on those continents.
B)It enabled the rise of revolutionary nationalism in countries that were parts of European colonial empires.
C)Military production in nations in those regions dramatically stimulated economic development there.
D)The war caused enormous environmental damage in those regions that would hamper development there for decades.

Question 36

Why did many people abroad resist American Cold War ideology?

A)Many people in former colonies viewed the capitalism of the colonizers as the cause of depression, war, and fascism.
B)People in the former colonies were skeptical about the rise of the American welfare state.
C)Most people in the developing world considered Americans excessively timid and lacking the confidence to stand up communism.
D)It was difficult to convince people in developing nations that the United States had anything to offer them, politically or materially.

Question 37

How did the Soviet expert George F. Kennan assess Soviet communism in the Journal Foreign Affairs in July 1947?

A)vulnerable to corruption
B)susceptible to flattery
C)impervious to the logic of reason
D)justifiably cautious and rational

Question 38

At home the acceptance of the Truman doctrine required

A)a tax increase.
B)the reorganization of the government.
C)reductions in defense spending.
D)a unilateral approach to foreign policy.

Question 39

How long did the Berlin airlift last?

A)from May to June 1945
B)from June 1948 to May 1949
C)from June 1950 to October 1953
D)from August 1956 to October 1957

Question 40

Prior to World War II, Korea had been a colony of

A)Great Britain.
B)Germany.
C)Japan.
D)the United States.

Question 41

What did the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conclude about Korea as early as 1947?

A)It had to be liberated at all cost.
B)It had little strategic value to the United States.
C)The South Korean regime was perfectly capable of protecting itself.
D)The North Korean regime was suppressing a revolutionary uprising.

Question 42

The Democratic congressman from Mississippi, John Rankin, used the House committee on un-American activities as a forum to

A)criticize Republicans.
B)call for civil rights reform.
C)demand stronger protection for Israel.
D)attack liberal causes as communist.

Question 43

In 1946, President Harry S Truman issued to the Executive Order 9835, which

A)established a civil rights commission.
B)created the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
C)launched a Federal Employee Loyalty Program.
D)ordered the internment of Japanese Americans.

Question 44

Where did Time editor Whittaker Chambers hide the evidence of Alger Hiss's espionage activities?

A)in a bank safe in Switzerland
B)on one of the first computer chips
C)in a hollowed pumpkin on his Maryland farm
D)in a secret compartment in his desk

Question 45

What united Democrats and Republicans in the months following World War II?

A)a sense of shame over dropping the nuclear bomb
B)a focus on national security imperatives
C)a desire for rapid demobilization
D)a new affection for government price controls

Question 46

Which of the following was the most controversial element of President Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal?

A)a comprehensive federal health insurance program
B)an extension of the bracero program
C)comprehensive housing legislation for returning veterans
D)permanent federal farm subsidies

Question 47

How many American men used to the G.I. bill for technical and vocational training during the 1940s and 50s?

A)500,000
B)1 million
C)6 million
D)20 million

Question 48

In the years following the war, women were expected to move from their wartime identity as heroic "Rosie the riveters"

A)back to traditional roles.
B)towards the role of the breadwinner.
C)to equal participation in military operations.
D)towards the life of a childless career woman.

Question 49

What technology made places like Phoenix, Arizona, livable in the postwar years?

A)the car
B)air conditioning
C)bug spray
D)solar power

Question 50

What was the size of the standing U.S. Armed Forces in 1945?

A)less than 200,000
B)almost 2 million
C)about 4 million
D)over 12 million

Question 51

Which of the following states did not have an atomic facility after World War II?

A)New Mexico
B)California
C)Nevada
D)Mississippi

Question 52

Which of the following best assesses the impact of World War II on the American West?

A)It transformed the West from an urbanized industrial region into an extractive economy.
B)It transformed the West from a rural and pastoral landscape to an industrial wasteland.
C)It turned an entirely rural population into an urban one.
D)It transformed the West from an extractive economy to a highly urbanized industrial powerhouse.

Question 53

What impact did the McCarran Act of 1952 have?

A)It allowed about 100,000 refugees into the US.
B)It's forever ended the quota system for immigrants.
C)It reinforced perceptions of immigrants as a source of radicalism.
D)It gave Mexican-Americans an opportunity to integrate into American society.

Question 54

In the postwar years, which of these became an important symbol of freedom and affluence for many American families?

A)eating out
B)the family vacation
C)the VCR
D)the RV

Question 55

The most significant civil rights achievement of president Harry S Truman was

A)the fair employment practices commission.
B)the voting rights act.
C)the desegregation of the military.
D)the ban on racial covenants in housing.

Question 56

Which of the following was NOT a typical reaction Jackie Robinson experienced during his first season with the Dodgers?

A)loud cheers from his fans
B)death threats
C)racial slurs shouted from the stands
D)opposing teams threatening boycotts

Question 57

At the beginning of World War II, 77 percent of African-Americans lived in the South; how many still lived there in 1970?

A)5 percent
B)25 percent
C)50 percent
D)65 percent

Question 58

Truman's Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, believed that free markets created

A)free currencies.
B)full employment.
C)decent policies.
D)free people.

Question 59

Which of the following was a result of the Marshall Plan?

A)It crushed the hopes of Stalin to keep Germany and Japan weak.
B)It eroded support for the Democratic ticket amongst the working class.
C)It undermined and delayed the creation of the European Union.
D)It revealed the limited economic powers of the United States.

Question 60

Mao Zedong announced the communist People's Republic of China in

A)1945
B)1947
C)1949
D)1953

Question 61

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. trinitite
2. revolutionary nationalism
3. containment
4. demilitarized zone
5. Ayn Rand
6. Fair Deal
7. Nellis Air Force Base
8. "Double V" campaign
9. Jackie Robinson
10. red-lining

Question 62

How did President Harry S Truman assess Soviet leader Josef Stalin during his first months in office?

A)cunning and deceitful
B)honest and smart as hell
C)brutal and immoral
D)whining and weak-minded

Question 63

Approximately how many Soviet citizens died during World War II?

A)1 million
B)5 million
C)12 million
D)28 million

Question 64

Within the United States, the containment policy of Harry S Truman led to

A)the rise of the Republican Party.
B)the decline of the military-industrial complex.
C)a new red scare.
D)a sense of complacency and passivity.

Question 65

General Douglas MacArthur's recapture of Korea in 1950 began at

A)Midway.
B)Inchon.
C)Okinawa.
D)Seoul.

Question 66

What did the United States Supreme Court rule in the case of Dennis v. United States (1951)?

A)In institutions of education, separate but equal had no place.
B)Japanese-American internment was a legitimate use of federal power.
C)The Smith Act of 1948 was constitutional.
D)The control of immigration was a federal and not a state issue.

Question 67

How did the G.I. Bill highlight racial inequality in American society?

A)Southern states had the choice not to offer G.I. Bill benefits at all.
B)The bill only applied to white veterans.
C)Since African-Americans had not served in World War II, they could not benefit from the G.I. Bill.
D)Black veterans remained excluded from opportunities in education, even though they could pay tuition with the G.I. Bill.

Question 68

Why did the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, grow so dramatically during World War II?

A)It became the site for a Japanese-American internment camp.
B)The town hosted about 200,000 German prisoners of war.
C)Military authorities placed an airbase there.
D)The Manhattan project was developing the nuclear bomb there.

Question 69

During World War II, bald tires became a symbol of

A)what could happen when there was no man in the house.
B)rebellious youth culture.
C)the high-risk lifestyle of military veterans.
D)wartime sacrifice on the homefront.

Question 70

With what kind of record did Jackie Robinson finish his first season with the Dodgers in 1947?

A)It was so bad that his major league contract was not renewed.
B)It beat Babe Ruth's home run record within his first season.
C)It was weak, but Branch Rickey brought him back for a second season because he realized that stress had impacted Robinson's performance.
D)It won him the National League's Rookie of the Year award.

Question 71

How did white neighborhoods in many Northern cities respond to the rapid influx of new African American residents from the South during and after World War II?

A)They formed Ku Klux Klan chapters and paraded the streets openly.
B)They witnessed the increasing diversity of their neighborhoods with curiosity and optimism.
C)They created white covenants - agreements among homeowners not to sell to black buyers.
D)They moved out of the suburbs into the inner city apartments African Amerians seemed to shun.

Question 72

Explain the Truman Doctrine of containment as it emerged in 1947.

Question 73

What did President Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal accomplish, and where did it fail?

Question 74

How did Mexican immigration into the United States change during and after World War II?

Question 75

Explain the brutal murder of George Dorsey and three of his family members in Monroe, Georgia in 1946.

Question 76

Assess the success and limitations of the Marshall Plan.

Question 77

Discuss the groundwork African American veterans laid for the civil rights movement after World War II.

Question 78

Describe the way the Red Scare affected Americans' civil liberties. Were these restrictions justifiable? Explain why, or why not.

Question 79

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. Enola Gay
2. Soft power
3. Syngman Rhee
4. John Rankin
5. Non-Governmental Organizations
6. International Council for Women
7. Displaced Persons Act of 1948
8. Executive Order 9981
9. Medgar Evers
10. Marshall Plan

Question 80

How did Josef Stalin respond to President Harry S. Truman's objections to the Soviet annexation of Poland in May, 1945?

A)He apologized for the misunderstanding and withdrew Red Army troops from Poland.
B)He threatened the United States with the nuclear bomb if it tried to meddle with Soviet interests in Eastern Europe.
C)He explained that Soviet interests in Eastern Europe were more important than good relations with America's new president.
D)He threatened to withdraw the Red Army from Germany and let the United States carry the burden of occupation alone.