World War II pt. B vocabulary

Question 1

Containment

Answer 1

The action of keeping something harmful under control or within limits.

Question 2

Cold-War

Answer 2

A state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc.

Question 3

Truman Doctrine

Answer 3

The principle that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection.

Question 4

Marshall Plan

Answer 4

An American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II.

Question 5

NATO

Answer 5

An intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European states based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949.

Question 6

Warsaw Pact

Answer 6

A collective defence treaty among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Question 7

Cuneiform

Answer 7

Denoting or relating to the wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets.

Question 8

Berlin Wall

Answer 8

A guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.

Question 9

Khrushchev

Answer 9

A politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War.

Question 10

Mau Zedong

Answer 10

A Chinese communist revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China, which he governed as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949, until his death in 1976.

Question 11

Cuban Missile Crisis

Answer 11

A 13-day (October 16–28, 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba.

Question 12

Arms Race

Answer 12

A competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons, especially between the US and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Question 13

Satellite States

Answer 13

A political term that refers to a country or nation that was formally independent, but is now politically and economically influenced by another country.

Question 14

Domino Theory

Answer 14

The theory that a political event in one country will cause similar events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino causing an entire row of upended dominoes to fall.

Question 15

East Germany

Answer 15

An Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period.

Question 16

West Germany

Answer 16

The common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.

Question 17

The People’s Republic of China

Answer 17

A populous nation in East Asia whose vast landscape encompasses grassland, desert, mountains, lakes, rivers and more than 14,000km of coastline.

Question 18

The Great Leap Forward

Answer 18

An economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1958 to 1962.

Question 19

The Cultural Revolution

Answer 19

A sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976.

Question 20

The Gang of Four

Answer 20

A political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials, they came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes.

Question 21

The Red Guards

Answer 21

In 1966, a group of middle school students in Beijing named themselves “Chairman Mao’s Red Guards.

Question 22

Bay of Pigs

Answer 22

A failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961.

Question 23

Space Race

Answer 23

The 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability.

Question 24

The Iron Curtain

Answer 24

The name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Question 25

Sputnik I

Answer 25

Each of a series of Soviet artificial satellites, the first of which (launched on October 4, 1957) was the first satellite to be placed in orbit.

Question 26

PRI Party

Answer 26

A Mexican political party founded in 1929, that held power uninterruptedly in the country for 71 years from 1929 to 2000, first as the National Revolutionary Party, then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution.

Question 27

Samosa

Answer 27

A triangular savory pastry fried in ghee or oil, containing spiced vegetables or meat.

Question 28

Sandinista

Answer 28

A member of a left-wing Nicaraguan political organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which came to power in 1979 after overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Question 29

Guerilla

Answer 29

A member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces.

Question 30

Pinochet

Answer 30

A Chilean general, politician and the military ruler of Chile between 1973 and 1990; he remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army until 1998.

Question 31

Fidel Castro

Answer 31

A Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.

Question 32

Batista

Answer 32

A Spanish or Portuguese surname (although in Portuguese more common in the spelling Baptista), literally meaning “batiste”.

Question 33

Juan Peron

Answer 33

An Argentine lieutenant general and politician, after serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President, he was thrice elected President of Argentina, serving from June 1946 to September 1955, when he was overthrown in a coup d’état, and then from October 1973 until his death in July 1974.

Question 34

Eva Peron

Answer 34

The second wife of Argentine President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952

Question 35

Organization of American States

Answer 35

A continental organization founded on 30 April 1948, for the purposes of regional solidarity and cooperation among its member states.

Question 36

Doomsday Clock

Answer 36

A symbol which represents the likelihood of a human-caused global catastrophe.

Question 37

Sphere of Influence

Answer 37

A country or area in which another country has power to affect developments although it has no formal authority.

Question 38

Cooperatives

Answer 38

A farm, business, or other organization that is owned and run jointly by its members, who share the profits or benefits.

Question 39

Richard Nixon

Answer 39

An American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office.

Question 40

Henry Kissinger

Answer 40

An American diplomat and political scientist who served as the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Question 41

Operation Bootstrap

Answer 41

The name given to a series of projects which transformed the economy of Puerto Rico into an industrial and developed one.

Question 42

Prague Springs

Answer 42

A period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II.

Question 43

Duvalier

Answer 43

the President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971, he was elected president in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform and successfully thwarted a coup d’état in 1958.

Question 44

Salvador Allende

Answer 44

A Chilean physician and politician, known as the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections.

Question 45

Detente

Answer 45

The easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries.

Question 46

Dissidence

Answer 46

Protest against official policy; dissent.

Question 47

Helsinki Accords

Answer 47

An agreement signed by 35 nations that concluded the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in Helsinki, Finland.