1. buoyant
   terrified
2. sad

At the beginning of the ‘60s, America was mostly a happy place, with a solid economny and a snappy young president in office. It was a good time to be alive.

1. Afghanistan
   Turkey
2. USSR

After WWII, the Communists of the USSR settled into a decades-long Cold War with the democracy of the United States. The Cold War sparked some truly terrifying moments in the 20th century.

1. attempted assassinations
   starting riots
2. peaceful demonstrations

Minority groups took up civil disobedience to highlight social injustices, breaking laws in nonviolent ways and often getting arrested for their cause.

1. four Disney characters
   four famous politicians
2. four musicians

By 1964, the Beatles weren’t just a music group anymore — they were a cultural movement. The "Fab Four" were one of the strongest musical influences of the entire century.

1. ran the first sub-4:00 mile
   became the first human in space
2. crashed the first supersonic plane

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Garagin became the first person ever in space. Americans feared that the Communists were leaping ahead of them in the Space Race.

1. gay rights
   construction quality
2. banking system

In June 1969, a police raid on a gay club in New York ultimately ended in a riot. The uproar sparked a long-lasting social movement that completely changed gay rights in America.

1. Panama
   China
2. Iraq

In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, the Communists in China started the Great Leap Forward, which was meant to propel the country from an agrarian society to a more modern one. The plan backfired, causing a famine that killed tens of millions of people.

1. created tensions with Cuba
   escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam
2. caused a tariff war with China

In August 1964, North Vietnamese ships reportedly fired on U.S. Navy ships. The event, which may have been completely fabricated, gave the American government a reason to escalate U.S. troop levels in Vietnam.

1. San Francisco
   Dallas
2. New York City

On that fateful Friday in 1963, JFK’s motorcade was slowly winding through downtown Dallas when shots rang out. The president’s murder was an abrupt and violent turn in American history.

1. Ronald Reagan
   Gerald Ford
2. Lyndon Johnson

Immediately after Kennedy died from his wounds, Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of the presidency. Overnight, America turned into a very different place.

1. to protest the Vietnam War
   to protest racial inequality
2. to start nice bonfires

Young men took to burning their draft (conscription) cards to protest the Vietnam War. Of course, they also did so because they really didn’t want to die in a bloody jungle quagmire.

1. Wichita
   New Orleans
2. Los Angeles

In August 1965, racial tensions with police exploded into the Watts riots in Los Angeles. For six days, arson and looting took place, killing dozens of people and causing tens of millions of dollars in damages.

1. minorities
   women
2. children

The Voting Rights Act is sometimes called the most important bit of federal legislation ever created. It eliminated poll taxes and other barriers that were traditionally used to keep minorities from casting their votes.

1. a Chinese restaurant
   a pact between Russia and Japan
2. domestic programs in America

President Johnson set out to improve the U.S. through his "Great Society" agenda, which was meant to erase injustice and inequality throughout the land. It was a bold and ambitious move.

1. “a hand up, not a handout"
   "a hand up and a foot down"
2. "an arm and a leg"

The Great Society’s architects were careful to frame their programs not as welfare, but as simply good policy. The projects of the Great Society were "a hand up, not a handout."

1. “I Dream of Jeanie"
   “I Have a Dream"
2. “I Have a Scheme"

In Washington, D.C., King gave his rousing "I Have a Dream" speech, in which he decried injustice and called his fellow Americans to stand up for what was right. It is still one of the most powerful speeches in American history.

1. racial segregation
   a type of illegal distillery
2. illegal feeding of birds

“Jim Crow" laws were common in the South during the ‘60s, segregating whites from blacks and perpetuating racial inequality. In order for real justice to exist, those Jim Crow laws would have to be dissolved.

1. Buzz Aldrin
   Neil Armstrong
2. They held hands and jumped so that they’d touch at the same time.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong was the commander of the Apollo 11 mission. He was also the one who made that "giant leap for mankind" when he became the first person ever to touch the moon.

1. anarchists kidnapped the president’s daughter
   a violent crackdown on protesters
2. a deadly fire that killed hundreds

A few miles from the Convention in Chicago, thousands of Vietnam War protesters gathered — and the police cracked down on them using violence. The debacle became another sign of ‘60s chaos.

1. Germany
   U.S-Mexico border
2. Italy

In 1961, the Berlin Wall split this German city in two. It became a stark symbol of Communist oppression verus democractic freedom.

1. FBI
   CIA
2. ATF

In 1961, the CIA sent Cuban exiles back to their country in hopes of dethroning Fidel Castro, a hardcore Communist. The plan was an eye-rolling failure, one that gave the Kennedy administration a huge public relations mess.

1. school preparation for small children
   a math and science program for immigrants
2. training for student athletes

President Johnson’s Great Society started Head Start, a program that prepares young children for school. Head Start is often credited with improving the academic performance of kids around the country.

1. Ronald Reagan
   Richard Nixon
2. Gerald Ford

In 1968, Nixon won the presidency by defeating Hubert Humphrey in the election. Nixon, of course, would ultimately see his administration go down in flames.

1. Italy
   USSR
2. France

In 1962, the U.S. learned that the USSR was shipping missiles to Cuba, meaning America had a major military threat right off its coast. The Cuban Missile Crisis saw President Kennedy staring down Soviet leaders, narrowly averting a military confrontation.

1. true
2. false

The Beatles are still the best-selling artists ever to release music in the U.S. and the U.K. In the U.S. alone, they sold nearly 180 million units ... and their albums still sell at a good pace.

1. North Vietnam
   Australia
2. USSR

In late January 1968, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, a major push against South Vietnam and the U.S. From a numbers perspective, the offensive was a failure, but it had the desired political effect in America, turning citizens even more against the war.

1. Philippines
   Canada
2. Cuba

In the ‘60s, Marxist revolutionary "Che" Guevara was a major leader during the Cuban Revolution. He attempted to spread his ideas throughout Latin America, upsetting established powers -- and then he was captured and executed.

1. France
   Canada
2. Iceland

The U.S. was hardly the only place suffering from societal turmoil in the ‘60s. The May 1968 protests in France stopped the country in its tracks and caused its president to temporarily flee for his own safety.

1. Indonesia
   Ireland
2. Israel

In the ‘60s, the Northern Ireland civil rights movement began ... and the violence of The Troubles started, too. The conflict dragged on until the ‘90s.

1. like things were only getting better
   like Mexico was replacing the U.S. as a superpower
2. like the world was falling apart

Forget all that happiness and contentment at the start of the ‘60s — by the end of the decade, it felt like America and the world at large was falling apart at the seams.