Cold War Quiz

From 1961 to 1991 in eight questions

Eight questions span the standoff, from the Wall going up in 1961 to the Union dissolved in 1991, with the space race included along the way. Three decades of confrontation, compressed: the divided city, the rival blocs, the machines sent past the atmosphere. What exactly happened when, and who did it, is the business of the quiz — this page sets the borders of the period and leaves the contents alone, so the questions still have something to ask you.

Settled before it was asked

Each answer comes from a dataset written twice over. Two authors compiled the same records without seeing each other’s work — 149 catalog facts plus a full list of the US presidencies — and the versions were compared key by key before question generation began. All 149 catalog facts checked out. A record the two authors could not agree on was discarded, and nothing was ever asked about it. The Cold War in this quiz is the one both authors put on paper independently, and the comparison confirmed.

How the quiz runs

It plays in this page, with no account and nothing to install.

• Four options accompany every question.
• The page marks your answer right or wrong at once and reveals the correct one.
• All eight questions come back for review when you finish.
• Your best score lives in your browser until you top it.