Cold War Battlefields Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cuba

With the help of Cuban troops, as well as some from East Germany and the Soviet Union, the MPLA ultimately emerged victorious from the Angolan Civil War and established a stable government in the early 1990s. By 1990 all foreign troops had withdrawn from Angola.

Answer: Vietnam was freed from French control.

The battle was a big victory for Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh forces. The withdrawal of France from Southeast Asia resulted in the division of Vietnam into two states, a communist North Vietnam, and an American-backed South Vietnam.

Obviously, this victory over the French was as much part of an anti-colonial war as part of the Cold War.

Answer: the Bay of Pigs invasion

Casualties among the Cuban refugee force aided by the CIA and the US Government included 118 killed, 360 wounded, and over 1,200 captured. The bungled invasion was a great embarrassment to President Kennedy and his Administration.

Answer: Inchon

The war began with a North Korean invasion of South Korea in June, and for three months North Korean forces moved steadily southward until US and UN forces held only the southeast corner area of Korea at Pusan. MacArthur then landed amphibious troops at Inchon from the 15th to the 19th of September. Shortly thereafter Seoul fell to the Americans and the tide was turned.

Answer: Tet Offensive

Support for the war in the court of public opinion in the States was already declining by 1968, but it plunged even further following the Tet Offensive. Newly-elected President Richard Nixon soon followed with the creation of a program he called Vietnamization, which was aimed at the withdrawal of American troops, which became a fact at the end of his first term.

Answer: USS Mayaguez

Little did Ford or his administration know that the Khmer Rouge were already in the process of releasing the crew of the "Mayaguez" as the attack on Koh Tang got underway. American forces did recapture the "Mayaguez," although it was by then unmanned, and the crew also were released by the Khmer Rouge.

Answer: El Salvador

Five communist groups made up FMLN with the support of the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and Bulgaria. The conflict was finally ended by the Chapultepec Peace Agreement of January 16, 1992, which ended the Salvadoran military regime and allowed the FMLN to continue as a political party.

Answer: China

From the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927, through the famous Long March of the mid-30s, up to the establishment of Communist China in 1949, Mao Zedong established himself as one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.

His rule continued in China for another 25 years, perhaps the definitive example of the "cult of personality." He died in 1976.

Answer: Afghanistan

Along with the US, 64 other nations boycotted the Moscow games, resulting in the smallest Summer Olympic field, 80 countries, since 1956. Nevertheless, in some events such as wrestling, boxing, swimming, and track and field, there were more competitors than in 1976, as many athletes from several countries competed under the Olympic flag rather than their national flags.

In 1984 the Soviets and their allies returned the favor by boycotting the Los Angeles games.

Answer: Hungary and Czechoslovakia

In October, 1956, Hungary's Central Committee named new prime minister in Imre Nagy, who subsequently called for a new democratic system. The Soviets then invaded Hungary and took control of the government and country in the first three days of November.

In 1968 a process of reform called the "Prague Spring" saw Alexander Dubčk's attempt to establish a democratic government in Czechoslovakia. Again, Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded and took over the nation.

As a result of the Czech situation, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev would announce a policy called the "Brezhnev Doctrine," which said the Soviet Union had the right to protect any Communist government threatened by an overthrow and that members of the Warsaw Pact enjoyed only limited sovereignty.