Postwar & Modern America

40 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which scandal, named for a Washington office building, forced a president's resignation?
- A. the Teapot Dome scandal
- B. the Iran-Contra affair
- C. the Whiskey Ring
- D. the Watergate scandal
Show answer
the Watergate scandal
Did you know? The Watergate break-in occurred in June 1972.
2.Which 1990 invasion of a small Gulf neighbor triggered Operation Desert Storm?
- A. the Iran-Iraq border war
- B. the invasion of Iran
- C. the seizure of Khafji
- D. the invasion of Kuwait
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the invasion of Kuwait
Did you know? Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
3.Which cabinet department, created in 2002, merged 22 federal agencies?
- A. the Department of Homeland Security
- B. the Department of Justice
- C. the Department of Defense
- D. the Department of Transportation
Show answer
the Department of Homeland Security
Did you know? DHS opened on March 1, 2003.
4.Which 1990 law barred discrimination against Americans with disabilities?
- A. the Fair Housing Act
- B. the Americans with Disabilities Act
- C. the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- D. the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Show answer
the Americans with Disabilities Act
Did you know? The ADA required ramps, interpreters and accessible workplaces.
5.Which April 1975 fall ended the Vietnam War?
- A. the fall of Hanoi
- B. the fall of Hue
- C. the fall of Da Nang
- D. the fall of Saigon
Show answer
the fall of Saigon
Did you know? Helicopters evacuated the embassy roof in Saigon on April 30, 1975.
6.In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?
- A. 1990
- B. 1989
- C. 1987
- D. 1991
Show answer
1989
Did you know? The Wall opened on the night of November 9, 1989.
7.Which May 1980 eruption devastated a Washington State mountain?
- A. Mount Baker
- B. Mount St. Helens
- C. Mount Rainier
- D. Mount Hood
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Mount St. Helens
Did you know? The 1980 eruption removed over 1,300 feet from St. Helens' summit.
8.Which August 2005 hurricane flooded about 80 percent of New Orleans?
- A. Hurricane Katrina
- B. Hurricane Sandy
- C. Hurricane Rita
- D. Hurricane Andrew
Show answer
Hurricane Katrina
Did you know? Katrina's levee failures displaced over a million people.
9.Which 1970 agency consolidated federal environmental programs in one home?
- A. the Army Corps of Engineers
- B. the National Park Service
- C. the Department of the Interior
- D. the Environmental Protection Agency
Show answer
the Environmental Protection Agency
Did you know? The EPA began operating on December 2, 1970.
10.Which 1971 amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen?
- A. the Twenty-Third Amendment
- B. the Twenty-Sixth Amendment
- C. the Twenty-Fourth Amendment
- D. the Nineteenth Amendment
Show answer
the Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Did you know? "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote" drove the amendment.
11.Which 1973 embargo by oil exporters quadrupled American gasoline prices?
- A. the 1973 oil crisis
- B. the 1979 energy crisis
- C. the Texas petro bust
- D. the shale boom
Show answer
the 1973 oil crisis
Did you know? The embargo followed the October 1973 Middle East war.
12.Which 1,776-foot tower opened at Ground Zero in November 2014?
- A. One World Trade Center
- B. the Empire State Building
- C. the Willis Tower
- D. Two World Trade Center
Show answer
One World Trade Center
Did you know? One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
13.Which president pardoned his immediate predecessor in September 1974?
- A. Ronald Reagan
- B. Jimmy Carter
- C. Richard Nixon
- D. Gerald Ford
Show answer
Gerald Ford
Did you know? Ford's full pardon of Nixon followed the resignation by a month.
14.Which wall did East Germany begin sealing Berlin with, in August 1961?
- A. the Warsaw wall
- B. the Inner German border
- C. the Iron Curtain
- D. the Berlin Wall
Show answer
the Berlin Wall
Did you know? Barbed wire sealed East Berlin on August 13, 1961.
15.In which year did the Iraq War begin?
- A. 1990
- B. 1991
- C. 2003
- D. 2001
Show answer
2003
Did you know? The invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003.
16.Which November 1963 trip ended in tragedy at Dealey Plaza?
- A. President Kennedy's Dallas visit
- B. President McKinley's Buffalo expo
- C. President Lincoln's Ford's Theatre evening
- D. President Roosevelt's Warm Springs trip
Show answer
President Kennedy's Dallas visit
Did you know? Kennedy was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
17.Which April 1961 invasion at a Cuban bay failed within three days?
- A. the Bay of Pigs invasion
- B. Operation Mongoose
- C. the Cuban Missile Crisis
- D. the Grenada intervention
Show answer
the Bay of Pigs invasion
Did you know? About 1,400 exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961.
18.Which 1956 act funded 41,000 miles of highways across the country?
- A. the National Trails System Act
- B. the Highway Trust Fund levy
- C. the Interstate Highway Act
- D. the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916
Show answer
the Interstate Highway Act
Did you know? Eisenhower signed the act, citing his 1919 convoy experience.
19.Which 1979-1981 standoff held American embassy staff hostage in Tehran?
- A. the Quito embassy siege
- B. the Iran hostage crisis
- C. the Berlin hostage crisis
- D. the Tehran conference
Show answer
the Iran hostage crisis
Did you know? The 52 hostages were held for 444 days.
20.Which October 2001 law expanded government surveillance and investigation powers?
- A. the USA PATRIOT Act
- B. the National Security Act
- C. the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
- D. the Homeland Security Act
Show answer
the USA PATRIOT Act
Did you know? Congress passed the act 45 days after the September 11 attacks.
21.Which 1944 law helped returning veterans pay for college and homes?
- A. the G.I. Bill
- B. the New Deal
- C. the Homestead Act
- D. the Wagner Act
Show answer
the G.I. Bill
Did you know? The G.I. Bill sent millions of veterans to college after 1945.
22.Which federal office building was struck on the morning of September 11, 2001?
- A. the Pentagon
- B. the Capitol
- C. the FBI headquarters
- D. the White House
Show answer
the Pentagon
Did you know? Flight 77 struck the Pentagon's western side at 9:37 a.m.
23.Which September-October 1960 meetings staged the first televised presidential debates?
- A. the Kennedy-Nixon debates
- B. the Kennedy-Ford debates
- C. the Truman-Dewey debates
- D. the Lincoln-Douglas debates
Show answer
the Kennedy-Nixon debates
Did you know? About 70 million viewers watched the first debate on September 26, 1960.
24.In which Pennsylvania field did passengers force down United Flight 93?
- A. Harrisburg
- B. Shanksville
- C. Scranton
- D. Allentown
Show answer
Shanksville
Did you know? The passengers fought back; the plane crashed near Shanksville at 10:03 a.m.
25.Which 1953 agreement paused the Korean fighting near the 38th parallel?
- A. the Korean Armistice Agreement
- B. the Treaty of Portsmouth
- C. the Geneva Accords
- D. the Paris Peace Accords
Show answer
the Korean Armistice Agreement
Did you know? The armistice was signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953.
26.Which agency, created in November 2001, federalized airport screening?
- A. the Department of Homeland Security
- B. the Federal Aviation Administration
- C. the Secret Service
- D. the Transportation Security Administration
Show answer
the Transportation Security Administration
Did you know? The TSA screens about two million passengers a day.
27.Which general oversaw Japan's occupation and reform, from 1945 to 1951?
- A. Dwight D. Eisenhower
- B. Douglas MacArthur
- C. Chester Nimitz
- D. George Marshall
Show answer
Douglas MacArthur
Did you know? MacArthur's Tokyo headquarters wrote Japan's postwar constitution.
28.On which date did four hijacked airliners strike the United States?
- A. October 11, 2001
- B. November 11, 2001
- C. September 9, 2001
- D. September 11, 2001
Show answer
September 11, 2001
Did you know? The attacks destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers.
29.Which 1948 program shipped over thirteen billion dollars to rebuild Western Europe?
- A. the Common Market
- B. the Lend-Lease program
- C. the Truman Doctrine
- D. the Marshall Plan
Show answer
the Marshall Plan
Did you know? Secretary George Marshall proposed the plan at Harvard in June 1947.
30.Which 1948-1949 operation supplied West Berlin entirely by air?
- A. the Neutrality Patrol
- B. the Berlin Airlift
- C. Operation Vittles' end
- D. the Berlin blockade
Show answer
the Berlin Airlift
Did you know? Allied pilots flew about 278,000 supply flights to Tempelhof.
31.Which two states joined the Union in 1959, completing the fifty?
- A. Alaska and Hawaii
- B. Arizona and New Mexico
- C. Hawaii and Puerto Rico
- D. Oklahoma and New Mexico
Show answer
Alaska and Hawaii
Did you know? Alaska entered in January, Hawaii in August 1959.
32.Which conflict ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty?
- A. the Persian Gulf War
- B. the Vietnam War
- C. the Spanish-American War
- D. the Korean War
Show answer
the Korean War
Did you know? Technically, the two Koreas remain in an armistice to this day.
33.Which New Mexico laboratory designed the first atomic bombs?
- A. Los Alamos
- B. Hanford
- C. Sandia
- D. Oak Ridge
Show answer
Los Alamos
Did you know? Oppenheimer's Los Alamos team worked on the mesa "Site Y".
34.Which secret program built the first atomic bombs?
- A. Operation Paperclip
- B. the Manhattan Project
- C. the Trinity Project
- D. the Alsos Mission
Show answer
the Manhattan Project
Did you know? The Manhattan Project employed about 130,000 people at its peak.
35.Which 1947 pledge promised American aid to nations resisting armed subjugation?
- A. the Marshall Plan
- B. the Eisenhower Doctrine
- C. the Monroe Doctrine
- D. the Truman Doctrine
Show answer
the Truman Doctrine
Did you know? Truman announced the doctrine to Congress on March 12, 1947.
36.Which organization's charter was signed in San Francisco in June 1945?
- A. the League of Nations
- B. the United Nations
- C. the Warsaw Pact
- D. the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Show answer
the United Nations
Did you know? The UN charter took effect in October 1945.
37.Which memorial's twin reflecting pools opened on the attacks' tenth anniversary, in 2011?
- A. the National September 11 Memorial
- B. the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- C. the Flight 93 memorial
- D. the Pentagon Memorial
Show answer
the National September 11 Memorial
Did you know? The pools sit in the twins towers' footprints.
38.Which U-2 pilot was shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960?
- A. Scott O'Grady
- B. Scott Crossfield
- C. Gary Powers
- D. Chuck Yeager
Show answer
Gary Powers
Did you know? Powers was exchanged for spy Rudolf Abel in February 1962.
39.Which March 1989 tanker spill fouled Alaska's Prince William Sound?
- A. the Amoco Cadiz spill
- B. the Exxon Valdez spill
- C. the Santa Barbara spill
- D. the Deepwater Horizon spill
Show answer
the Exxon Valdez spill
Did you know? The Exxon Valdez spilled about 11 million gallons of crude.
40.Which private company first flew astronauts to the International Space Station, in May 2020?
- A. Blue Origin
- B. Lockheed Martin
- C. SpaceX
- D. Boeing
Show answer
SpaceX
Did you know? Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew Demo-2 on a Falcon 9.

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