1. the Cold War
   the Long War
2. the Proxy War
   there is no name for it

On the ​surface, this question isn't about Korea. Except, of course, that the struggle between capitalism and communism has everything to do with what happened in Korea in the early 1950s.

1. 38th Parallel
   Forgotten
2. Truman's Folly
   Unending

Remember, the Korean War was first dubbed a "UN police action," not a war. Then, it never officially ended. It's not surprising that it hasn't captured a higher profile in the history books.

1. China Beach
   M*A*S*H
2. Dark Angel
   Trapper John, M.D.

A witty, socially-conscious-but-not-preachy comedy, "M*A*SH" was one of the most-watched shows of the 1970s. It ran for eleven years, eight more than the Korean War itself, leading Mad Magazine to joke that "the pen really is mightier than the sword!"

1. Cohn's theory
   domino theory
2. Lenin theory
   virus theory

The name is based on a visual: that of a line of dominoes falling, one after the other. Of course, the other famous metaphor about communism was that of a camel with its nose in a tent -- if not pushed back, pretty soon the camel will come further and further inside.

1. Japan
   the United States
2. Russia
   Vietnam

From 1905 to 1910, Japan considered Korea a "protectorate." In 1910, it annexed the neighboring country entirely.

1. a discussion among Western leaders about how to contain communism
   a mid-WWII discussion of the Allies' position on Japan and Asia
2. a discussion of how to repatriate Korean War POWs
   a last-ditch negotiation to keep war from breaking out in Korea

The Cairo Conference was held because it was becoming clear that the Allies would win in the Pacific theater. Allied leaders agreed that they did not wish to benefit from Japan's defeat, but did want to strip the nation of holdings seized by aggression. This meant that the Allied leaders decreed that Korea "shall be free" after Japan's defeat.

1. China
   Japan
2. the USSR
   Germany

The Soviet Union was an American ally in WWII (the Cold War hadn't broken out yet). So, as a major world power, the USSR was a natural choice to co-administrate Korea.

1. five years
   15 years
2. 25 years
   indefinitely

This was undoubtedly five years too long for most Koreans. They had already spent decades under Japan's control.

1. the Rumsfeld line
   the no-man's-zone
2. the 38th Parallel
   the Truman line

The border between the two Koreas was simply called the 38th Parallel. Today you'll also hear the phrase "the demilitarized zone," a buffer zone about two and a half miles wide to which neither side has ultimate rights.

1. Omar Bradley
   John Hodge
2. Mao Zedong
   Syngman Rhee

Rhee, elected president in 1948, was educated in the United States, including an M.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D.​ from Princeton. He was strongly anti-communist and considered by many to be a strongman.

1. Kim Cho-Park
   Kim Tu-bong
2. Kim il-Sung
   Kim Jong-il

Within a few years, both Koreas had their own leaders. Predictably, the USSR-influenced North chose a Communist, while the American-influenced South chose a pro-Western leader.

1. Dwight Eisenhower
   Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2. Harry S. Truman
   Jimmy Carter

Truman took office after the death of FDR in 1945, and served through 1953. The middle initial, "S", in his name is just an initial -- it honors both his grandfathers, Solomon Young and Anderson Shipp Truman.

1. January 1
   April 9
2. June 25
   September 1

On this day, soldiers from the North crossed the 38th Parallel. For a while, their advance into the South was virtually unchecked.

1. Yuri Andropov
   Nikita Kruschev
2. Georgy Malenkov
   Joseph Stalin

Stalin has a fearsome legacy in the history books. His time in office saw great expansion for the USSR, but also famines due to food collectivization, and the disappearances and deaths of many purported "enemies of the state."

1. 1948
   1950
2. 1954
   1956

The Korean People's Army was the army of North Korea. There are some who believe that the South started aggressions, but there's no denying that the KPA came over the border and began steamrolling its way southward.

1. the Crimean War
   the Chinese civil war
2. the Russian Revolution
   WWII

The North Korean government had given supplies and soldiers to the Communists, who were eventually successful in defeating the Chinese Nationalists. As a byproduct, many North Korean soldiers were battle-ready when it came time to invade the South and try to reunify Korea.

1. USA
   United Kingdon
2. South Korea
   they were controlled by the UN

Technically, what happened in Korea was not a war but a "UN police action." Which is not a convincing argument when your country is full of soldiers, tanks, and artillery arrays.

1. the Truman Resolution
   the Marshall Resolution
2. the Seoul Resolution
   Resolution 83

It's not the most stirring name! In contrast, U.S. military actions have names like "Desert Storm" -- created by Pentagon think tanks in order to appeal to the public.

1. the Soviets were confident North Korea would win
   the Soviet Union was boycotting the UN at the time
2. the Soviets didn't want to provoke the US
   they did vote against it, but were overruled

The boycott was based on the fact that the UN did not acknowledge the new communist government of China. In solidarity, the USSR boycotted the United Nations -- and therefore did not vote on Resolution 83. It seems likely that the United States would have found a way to go to war in defense of South Korea anyway, but it didn't have to.

1. Colombia
   Italy
2. South Africa
   Thailand

Sixteen countries formed the UN coalition that sent troops to South Korea. Some of its constituents might surprise people today, who don't think of countries like Colombia as natural US allies. Nor is Thailand thought of as a military power -- but it sent approximately 1,300 soldiers to the effort.

1. 5 percent
   12 percent
2. 15 percent
   30 percent

When you look at the troop numbers, it's clear that the UN police action was a thinly-veiled American mission. While the largest number of soldiers were South Korean, Americans made up the highest number of non-Korean combatants, at approximately 300,000. The next-nearest number were 14,000 from Great Britain.

1. the Demilitarized Zone
   the Little Republic
2. the Pusan Perimeter
   the Rhee Perimeter

Western-allied forces held the tip of the peninsula, around Pusan, behind a 140-mile-long boundary. The rest of Korea had fallen to KPA forces.

1. George Patton
   Douglas MacArthur
2. Black Jack Pershing
   Hoyt Vandenberg

MacArthur wasn't always well-liked in Washington because of what some would call showboating behavior. However, both he and his father were awarded the Medal of Honor, the first father and son to do so.

1. Jeju
   Inchon
2. Pusan
   Ulsan

Inchon was a difficult target, with impassable mud flats at low tide and high seawalls. Nonetheless, the operation behind North Korean lines was a success.

1. the Han
   the Seoul
2. the Mekong
   the Yalu

Unfortunately, several thousand refugees were crossing the bridge at the time. It's estimated that hundreds of them were killed.

1. China
   Japan
2. Cambodia
   Vietnam

Japan had been a U.S. enemy in WWII. But since its surrender in 1945, Japan was an important capitalist power in East Asia, and the United States wanted to protect it from the spread of communism.

1. September 1950
   June 1951
2. August 1952
   March 1953

By late September, Seoul was once again in South Korean hands, and the Rhee government was restored. This was a mere three months after the KPA came over the 38th Parallel.

1. de-mobilized and went home
   stayed as a limited defense force in Seoul
2. kept up a force at the 38th Parallel
   advanced into North Korea, all the way up to the Chinese border

MacArthur felt certain that China would not act if UN forces attempted to take the North and unify Korea under capitalist rule. This isn't to say that MacArthur acted solely on his own initiative: a secret memo from the defense secretary gave him the go-ahead to cross into the North.

1. censured the US openly in a UN session
   sent troops to defend North Korea
2. asked the Soviets to launch a nuclear attack
   they did nothing

China entering the war shifted the balance back in North Korea's favor. It also emboldened the USSR, previously unwilling to get involved, to provide fighter jets and pilots.

1. the North
   the South
2. neither

The North and South declared a cease-fire, which has held for more than 50 years. But technically, the two nations are still at war.

1. 1952
   1953
2. 1954
   1955

After the combined Chinese and North Korean forces drove South Korean and UN troops back south, the war stretched on for three years, with the US regularly bombing North Korea in a "scorched earth" policy. Simple exhaustion with this state of affairs led to the armistice.

1. both sides' desire to rule the whole country
   northern POWs refusing to be repatriated
2. an issue of financial reparations
   the continued influence of China on the North

Did the majority of Koreans want Communism? That "hearts and minds" question is difficult to answer with certainty. On the one hand, Rhee massacred a great many Communists in the South. However, a number of North Korean soldiers did not want to go back to the Communist North after the war.

1. about 9,000
   about 30,000
2. about 50,000
   more than 100,000

33,629 Americans were killed in three years of fighting. The figure was once listed at about 54,000, but this included all military deaths during that time period, even outside Korea. Revised to just reflect battle deaths in Korea, the number came out at the 33,000+ figure.

1. 55,000
   75,000
2. 200,000
   4 million

Sadly and predictably, many of the Korean casualties were civilians. China, meanwhile, paid a high price in human lives for its support of ally North Korea.

1. a suggested boundary to replace the 38th Parallel
   a war memorial
2. a massacre of civilians
   the site of attempted peace talks

As many as 400 Korean civilians were killed by an air and ground attack near the village of No Gun Ri. The Associated Press broke the story in 1999 ("broke" meaning to the wider world; the incident was well known inside Korea). In a controversial move, U.S. troops were ordered at the time to fire on civilian refugees, because the KPA was disguising soldiers as refugees in order to get them close enough to attack.