Download COLD WAR VOCABULARY LIST

COLD WAR VOCABULARY LIST
Sections 1 & 2
QUIZ 1
1. Superpowers
(2 Quizzes) DATES:_______________________________________________
A nation that is stronger than other powerful nations.
2. Anti-ballistic
missiles (ABMs)
Missiles that can shoot down other missiles.
3. Ronald Reagan
The president of the United States from 1980 to 1988. Instrumental in ending the Cold
War.
4. Détente
The relaxation of Cold War tensions during the 1970s.
5. Fidel Castro
Leader of an armed rebellion in Cuba, who took power there in 1959 and allied with
the Soviet Union.
6. John F. Kennedy
The president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. Involved in the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
7. Ideology
System of thought and belief.
8. Nikita Khrushchev
The leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death in 1953, who called for “peaceful
coexistence” with the West.
9. Containment
The U.S. strategy of keeping communism within its existing boundaries and preventing
its further expansion.
10. Recession
Period of reduced economic activity.
11. Suburbanization
The movement to built-up areas outside of central cities.
12. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
A gifted preacher who emerged as a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1950s.
Famous for “I have a dream” speech.
13. Welfare state
A country with a market economy but with increased government responsibility for the
social and economic needs of its people.
14. European
community
An international organization dedicated to establishing free trade among its European
member nations.
Sections 3,4,5- QUIZ 2
1. Collectivization
The forced joining together of workers and property into collectives, such as rural
collectives that absorb peasants and their land.
2. Great Leap
Forward
A Chinese Communist program from 1958 to 1960 to boost farm and industrial output
that failed miserably.
3. Cultural
Revolution
A Chinese Communist program in the late 1960s to purge China of non-revolutionary
tendencies that caused economic and social damage.
4. 38th Parallel
An imaginary line marking 38 degrees of latitude, particularly the line across the
Korean Peninsula, dividing Soviet forces to the north and American forces to the south
after WWII.
5. Kim Il Sung
North Korean dictator and ally of the Soviet Union.
6. Demilitarized zone
a thin band of territory across the Korean peninsula separating North Korean forces
from South Korean forces; established by the armistice of 1953.
7. Guerillas
a soldier in a loosely organized force making surprise raids.
8. Ho Chi Minh
A communist leader in Vietnam who fought the Japanese, fought the French, and
battled U.S.-supported South Vietnam for control of the country.
9. Dienbienphu
Small town and former French army base in northern Vietnam; site of the battle that
ended in a Vietnamese victory, the French withdrawal from Vietnam, and the securing
of North Vietnam’s independence.
10. Domino theory
The belief that a communist victory in South Vietnam would cause noncommunist
governments across Southeast Asia to fall to communism, like a row of dominoes.
11. Viet Cong
Communist rebels in South Vietnam who sought to overthrow South Vietnam’s
government; received assistance from North Vietnam.
12. Tet Offensive
A massive and bloody offensive by communist guerrillas against South Vietnamese
and American forces on the Vietnamese New Year, 1968; helped turn American public
opinion against military involvement in Vietnam.
13. Khmer Rouge
a political movement and a force of Cambodian communist guerrillas that gained
power in Cambodia in 1975.
14. Pol pot
A brutal dictator who led the Khmer Rouge and killed a third of the population in an
effort to destroy all Western influences.
15. Mujahedin
Muslim religious order
16. Mikhail Gorbachev
A leader in the Soviet Union who came to power in 1985 and was eager to bring about
reforms.
17. Glasnost
“openness” in Russian; a Soviet policy of greater freedom of expression introduced by
Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.
18. Perestroika
A Soviet policy of democratic and free-market reforms introduced by Mikhail
Gorbachev in the late 1980s.
19. Solidarity
A Polish labor union and democracy movement.