Charles Coggins

THE CENTURY: BEST YEARS 1946 TO 1952

1. What speech did Winston Churchill give at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri?’
a. Iron Curtain Speech
2. What made Levittown so cost effective to purchase?
a. In order to give people a chance to buy an affordable house, Levitt cut costs by eliminating basements and
giving all houses in his development the same floor plan. Also, interior partitions, roof trusses, and door and
window units were cut to the required shape before they left the factory to make the homes in Levittown
cheaper.
3. What was the name of the generation born between 1946 and 1963?
a. Baby Boomers
4. In some ways, how was the “baby boom” a step backward for women?
a. Women were stuck at home, focusing on housekeeping and parenting.
5. What was the experience for black Americans returning from war?
a. Black soldiers returning from the war found the same racist violence that they faced before. Despite their
sacrifices, they still struggled to get hired for well-paying jobs, encountered segregation and endured targeted
brutality.
6. Who was the first black man to play in major league baseball?
a. Jackie Robinson
7. What made the Marshall Plan so effective in Europe?
a. This aid provided much needed capital and materials that enabled Europeans to rebuild the continent's
economy. It provided $15 billion for Europeans.
8. What acts of brutality did the Russians demonstrate towards the Germans?
a. Soviet authorities deported German civilians from Germany and Eastern Europe to the USSR after World
War II as forced laborers, while ethnic Germans living in the USSR were deported during World War II and
conscripted for forced labor.
9. In what year did the Soviets get the atomic bomb?
a. 1949 (August 29)
10. How did some Americans prepare their homes for an atomic attack?
a. Americans began building at-home nuclear fallout shelters. Each shelter had at least two weeks of supplies.
11. What occurred on June 25, 1950?
a. Korean War begins
12. How was the experience of the veterans returning from Korea different from those who had returned from World War
II?
a. America at the time of the Korea War was confused and did not really understand the U.S.'s presence in
Korea.
13. What were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg arrested for?
a. In June 1953, they were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917.
Members of the communist party were convicted of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the
Soviet Union in 1945.
14. Which senator started the “witch hunt” to expose communist spies in the United States?
a. Senator Joseph McCarthy
15. Who was Commander of the UN forces in Korea?
a. General Douglas MacArthur
16. Why did President Truman fire General MacArthur?
a. MacArthur refused to pull his forces out of the Korean War after China threatened war and Truman ordered a
retreat. MacArthur also gave North Korea an ultimatum, which Truman strongly disliked.
17. Who was the first presidential candidate to use television advertising?
a. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Eisenhower Answers America Ad Campaign)
 Cold War – 1946 to 1989
o War between United States and Soviet Union, who would not fight each other directly, but would block each
other’s goals around the world.
 Goal of Soviet Union
o Spread Communism
 Goal of United States
o Stop the spread of communism.