Vietnam War Jeopardy

A free Vietnam War review board covering origins, escalation, protest, and the fall of Saigon. Put it on the screen and students buzz in from phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

For the classroom

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

French Indochina

$200
This Vietnamese nationalist leader declared independence from France in September 1945, borrowing words from the US Declaration of Independence.
Who is Ho Chi Minh?
$400
In 1954 Vietnamese forces overran the French at this besieged valley fortress, ending French rule in Indochina.
What is Dien Bien Phu?
$600
A 1954 conference in this Swiss city temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
What is Geneva?
$800
This Communist-led independence league, founded in 1941, fought first the Japanese and then the French.
What is the Viet Minh?
$1,000
France began its conquest of Vietnam in 1858 during the reign of this French emperor.
Who is Napoleon III?

Escalation

$200
This Cold War theory held that if one Southeast Asian nation fell to communism, its neighbors would soon follow.
What is the domino theory?
$400
Beginning in March 1965, this sustained US bombing campaign against North Vietnam lasted until late 1968.
What is Operation Rolling Thunder?
$600
In March 1965 the first US ground combat units, from this branch of the armed forces, came ashore at Da Nang.
What are the Marines?
$800
By late 1963 about 16,000 of these US military personnel were in South Vietnam, officially to train and assist rather than fight.
What are military advisers?
$1,000
This herbicide, named for the colored stripe on its storage drums, was sprayed to strip away jungle cover and crops.
What is Agent Orange?

Battles and Strategy

$200
This January 1968 surprise attack, launched during the lunar new year holiday, shook American confidence in the war.
What is the Tet Offensive?
$400
This network of paths through Laos and Cambodia carried troops and supplies from North to South Vietnam.
What is the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
$600
This US tactic sent units out to locate enemy forces, attack them, and then withdraw rather than hold territory.
What is search and destroy?
$800
In November 1965 this battle in the Central Highlands was the first major clash between US troops and the North Vietnamese Army.
What is the Battle of Ia Drang?
$1,000
In early 1968 North Vietnamese forces besieged this US Marine combat base near the demilitarized zone for about 77 days.
What is Khe Sanh?

The Home Front

$200
In May 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four students during an antiwar protest at this university.
What is Kent State University?
$400
In February 1968 this respected CBS News anchor told viewers he believed the war was mired in stalemate.
Who is Walter Cronkite?
$600
This heavyweight boxing champion was stripped of his title in 1967 after refusing induction into the Army.
Who is Muhammad Ali?
$800
In 1971 Daniel Ellsberg leaked this secret Defense Department history of US decision-making in Vietnam to the press.
What are the Pentagon Papers?
$1,000
Held in December 1969, this televised drawing of birth dates set the order in which young men would be called up to serve.
What is the draft lottery?

Leaders and Decisions

$200
This Texan became president after Kennedy's assassination and oversaw the major buildup of US troops in Vietnam.
Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?
$400
In 1963 this Catholic president of South Vietnam, whose government persecuted Buddhists, was overthrown and killed in a coup.
Who is Ngo Dinh Diem?
$600
This general commanded US forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968.
Who is William Westmoreland?
$800
A former Ford Motor Company president, this secretary of defense under Kennedy and Johnson was a chief architect of escalation.
Who is Robert McNamara?
$1,000
This national security adviser shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho, who declined it.
Who is Henry Kissinger?

Vietnamization and the End

$200
This president announced the policy of Vietnamization, handing combat duties to South Vietnamese forces as US troops withdrew.
Who is Richard Nixon?
$400
Signed in January 1973, these agreements ended direct US military involvement in the war.
What are the Paris Peace Accords?
$600
In April 1975 North Vietnamese tanks rolled into this southern capital, which was soon given a new name.
What is Saigon?
$800
A US incursion into this neighboring country, announced by Nixon in April 1970, set off protests on campuses across America.
What is Cambodia?
$1,000
Passed over Nixon's veto in 1973, this law requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to combat.
What is the War Powers Resolution?

Final Jeopardy — A Blank Check

After reported clashes with North Vietnamese patrol boats in August 1964, Congress passed this resolution giving President Johnson broad authority to use military force in Southeast Asia.

What is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

How to run this board

The board traces the conflict from French colonial rule and the Geneva Accords through American escalation under Kennedy and Johnson, the Tet Offensive, the antiwar movement at home, and Nixon's Vietnamization policy through to the fall of Saigon.

Many students have relatives who served or who came to the US afterward, so set a respectful tone before you start and keep the scoring light on the columns about the human cost.

Teams of four with one phone each is a good size for a full class. Save a few minutes after Final Jeopardy to ask what the war changed about how Americans viewed their government - it makes a strong exit ticket.

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