Can you beat them?
The Cold War Quiz
Ten questions on the long standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, from Yalta and the Berlin Airlift to Cuba and the night the Wall opened.
- 10 questions
- About 3 minutes
- Medium
- Includes 2 photos
About this quiz
The two superpowers never fought each other directly, but their rivalry shaped almost every country on Earth for more than forty years. The quiz follows its turning points: the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Blockade, Sputnik, the crushing of Hungary, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon's trip to China, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Several questions test stories that most people think they already know, such as what Roosevelt gave away at Yalta and how Kennedy really ended the missile crisis. Expect to learn something even from the answers you get right.
Read up first
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Encyclopedia
Yalta Conference
The February 1945 Big Three summit that shaped the postwar world and became shorthand for great powers dividing the map into spheres of influence.
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Encyclopedia
Cuban Missile Crisis
The thirteen days in October 1962 when a Soviet nuclear deployment to Cuba brought the superpowers closer to nuclear war than ever before or since.
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Blog
Why did the Soviet Union collapse?
The USSR had 30,000 nuclear weapons and the world's second-largest army. Within three months it dissolved without a war. Here is how a superpower talked itself out of existence.
