Q 01/05

Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed nuclear shield, was nicknamed after which film series?

A) Star Trek

B) Flash Gordon

C) Star Wars

D) Buck Rogers

Answer · why

C) Star Wars

Star Wars became the nickname after Senator Ted Kennedy used the film's title to mock a plan that studied lasers and space-based weapons.

Q 02/05

Which sport's American team was invited to China in 1971, a goodwill visit that helped thaw two decades of hostility?

A) Basketball

B) Weightlifting

C) Table tennis

D) Badminton

Answer · why

C) Table tennis

Table tennis broke the ice after American player Glenn Cowan missed his team bus at the world championships in Japan and rode with the Chinese squad i...

Q 03/05

Theodore Roosevelt summed up his foreign policy with a proverb about speaking softly while carrying what?

A) A sharp sword

B) A big stick

C) A long rope

D) A heavy purse

Answer · why

B) A big stick

A big stick stood for quiet negotiation backed by the threat of force. Roosevelt called the saying a West African proverb, though there is little evid...

Q 04/05

Which 1803 deal with France nearly doubled the size of the United States for about fifteen million dollars?

A) Gadsden Purchase

B) Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

C) Adams–Onís Treaty

D) Louisiana Purchase

Answer · why

D) Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase cost less than three cents an acre. The American envoys had been prepared to pay up to $10 million for New Orleans and its surr...

Q 05/05

Soviet nuclear missiles on which Caribbean island triggered a thirteen-day standoff with the United States in 1962?

A) Cuba

B) Jamaica

C) Haiti

D) Grenada

Answer · why

A) Cuba

Cuba was ringed by American warships in what John F. Kennedy called a quarantine, because declaring a blockade would have implied a state of war.