SUPERPOWER EXAM QUESTIONS
WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS
Potsdam conference - ANSWER-at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm
Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 16 to August 2, 1945;
Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; Stalin, Churchill, Harry S.
Truman, Clement Attlee; decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi
Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier;
establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of
war
Bretton Woods Conference - ANSWER-United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference; 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel,
situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the
international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II;
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF);
set up monetary exchange rate
UN Charter - ANSWER-set up the United Nations; signed in San Francisco on 26
June 1945; international organization that is supposed to keep the peace
Voice of America - ANSWER-VOA; official external broadcast institution of the
United States federal government; began shortly after the United States' entry into
the war
Containment - ANSWER-phrase coined by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan;
strategies to keep communism from spreading; President Truman and NATO
Truman Doctrine - ANSWER-U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic
and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere; supposedly the start of
the Cold War; "the policy of the United States to support free people who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."; won
the support of Republicans who controlled Congress and involved sending $400
million in American money, but no military forces
Berlin Blockade - ANSWER-one of the first major international crises of the Cold
War; Germany and Berlin were split; Berlin was in the Soviet region; Soviets blocked
off land access to West Berlin so Soviets could have all control over the city; U.S.
started Berlin Airlift where they flew in supplies
Warsaw Pact - ANSWER-Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation,
and Mutual Assistance (1955-1991); mutual defense treaty between eight communist
states of Eastern Europe; Soviet Union response to NATO
, CENTO - ANSWER-Central Treaty Organization; Middle East Treaty Organization or
METO; 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom; one of the
least successful Cold War alliances; committed the nations to mutual cooperation
and protection, as well as non-intervention in each other's affairs
Collective security - ANSWER-security arrangement, regional or global, in which
each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and
agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of the peace;
trouble actually implementing concept
Rio de Janeiro Conference - ANSWER-1933; first introduced by James G. Blaine of
Maine in order to establish closer ties between the United States and its southern
neighbors, specifically Latin America; Conferences of American States; Pan-
American Conferences
Lima Conference - ANSWER-1938; Pan-American Conference in Lima, Peru
Francisco Franco - ANSWER-Spanish general, dictator and the leader of the
Nationalist military rebellion in the Spanish Civil War; emerged as the leader of the
Nationalists against the Popular Front government; aid from Italy and Germany
(bombing of Guernica); supported the Axis powers
Teheran Conference - ANSWER-1943; strategy meeting held between Joseph
Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1
December 1943; commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi
Germany by the Western Allies
Battle of the Bulge - ANSWER-major German offensive; 16 December 1944 - 25
January 1945; through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region; Germans
surprised the Allies but Allied forces still won (strategically)
J. Robert Oppenheimer - ANSWER-"father of the atomic bomb"; worked on
Manhattan Project; never openly joined the Communist Party, though he did pass
money to liberal causes by way of acquaintances who were alleged to be Party
members
Nagasaki - ANSWER-2nd Japanese city that the U.S. atomic bombed; "Fat Boy";
August 9, 1945; hundreds of thousands of deaths immediately and from radiation
V-J Day - ANSWER-Victory in Japan Day; Victory in the Pacific Day; Japanese
surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri; effectively ending World War II
Japanese Relocation - ANSWER-Japanese-American internment camps; FDR
authorized relocation with Executive Order 9066; Feb. 19, 1942; allowed local
military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which
"any or all persons may be excluded."; all people of Japanese ancestry were
excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and much of
Oregon, Washington and Arizona, except for those in internment camps