duck and cover
Cold War drill
Duck and cover is a protective action against explosions or falling debris—crouching low and shielding the head with arms or hands.
The phrase became iconic through Cold War civil defense drills teaching American schoolchildren to hide under desks during nuclear attack, now often referenced with dark irony: As if duck and cover would save us from an atomic bomb.
- get downDescend or dance wildly
- atomic ageEra of harnessed fission
- air raid drillsPractice evacuations for bombings
- air raid sirenWarning horn for bombings
- fallout sheltersProtected spaces from radiation
bomb shelters · peace movement · hydrogen bomb · Cuban Missile Crisis · propaganda films · protective measures · emergency preparedness · disaster response · nuclear threat · atomic bomb · 1950s · survival tactics · nuclear fallout · emergency drills · radiation poisoning · thermonuclear weapons · mushroom cloud · evacuation plans
- drillsdrill, drills, drilling, fire drill, earthquake drill
- 1950s AmericaEisenhower, McCarthy, McCarthyism, suburbs, Korean War
- Fallout Protectionfallout shelter, bomb shelter, radiation shield, lead shielding, potassium iodide
- emergency preparednessemergency kit, evacuation plan, emergency plan, emergency alerts, emergency supplies
- Cold WarBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, arms race, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
- Nuclear Armsnuclear arms, nukes, atom bomb, nuclear warheads, hydrogen bombs
duck and coverfight back
Oppose an attacker
hold your ground · counterattack · evacuate · flee · active resistance
duck and coverblast shelter
Fortified refuge from explosions
bomb shelter · mutual assured destruction · evacuation plan · early warning system
duck and coverstand your ground
Refuse to back down
take a stand · face the music · defiance · resist · go down swinging
duck, cover, ducks, ducked, ducking, covers, covered, covering, coverage