MAPS OF HISTORY · The Cold War · THE QUIZ
The Cold War, 1945–1991 · TEST YOURSELF
The quiz
8 questions from the atlas’s Field Exam, free to try. Answer, then read the verdict — every answer is an argument, not a flashcard.
Marshall aid was formally offered to the USSR and its sphere. Why did Moscow refuse it?
The Plan required exactly the openness a command economy and a closed sphere could not survive. Czechoslovakia had accepted — and was overruled by a phone call from Moscow.
Why did China enter the Korean War in late 1950?
Beijing signaled its red line for weeks through Indian diplomats; UN forces crossed it anyway. 300,000 soldiers moving by night undid the Inchon victory in a month.
Soviet tanks crushed Budapest in the same week Britain and France invaded Suez. The linkage mattered because —
The Kremlin had genuinely hesitated over Hungary; Suez helped decide. Every satellite drew the lesson: the West will mourn you, not save you.
What did BOTH superpowers institutionalize immediately after the Cuban missile crisis?
The hotline (June 1963) and the Limited Test Ban Treaty (August 1963) began the entire arms-control architecture. The crisis civilized the race’s paperwork without ending the race.
The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a military disaster for the attackers — and is still the war’s turning point. Why?
The Viet Cong was gutted as a fighting force, but Americans told the war was nearly won watched it burning on television. In wars fought by consent, strategy and truth-telling are load-bearing on each other.
Why could Nixon — of all presidents — go to China in 1972?
Soviet and Chinese troops had fought on the Ussuri in 1969. Triangular diplomacy priced the split: be closer to each communist power than they were to each other.
Six communist regimes fell in 1989 within months of each other. The mechanism was —
Once the Brezhnev Doctrine was repealed and believed — Leipzig, 9 October, was the decisive non-order — it was one system failing everywhere, not six coincidences.
What formally ended the Soviet Union in December 1991?
8 December 1991, in a hunting lodge: the empire assembled by armies was dissolved by signatures. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December and the flag came down at 7:32 p.m.
THE OTHER 7 QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED ON THE MAP
“Click the border where the tide stopped for good.” 7 of the Field Exam’s questions can’t be asked on paper — you answer them by finding the place on the living map, and the exam stamps your rank when you’re done.
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