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1271
Marco Polo Travels to China
Marco Polo was one of the first and most famous Europeans to travel to Asia during the Middle Ages. He traveled farther than any of his predecessors during his 24-year journey along the Silk Road, reaching China and Mongolia, where he became a confidant of Kublai Khan -
1300
Little Ice Age beginning
The Little Ice Age was a period of regionally cold conditions between roughly AD 1300 and 1850. The term “Little Ice Age” is somewhat questionable, because there was no single, well-defined period of prolonged cold. -
1309
Babylonian Captivity (Avignon Papacy)
Clement declined to move to Rome, remaining in France, and in 1309, he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. -
1315
Great Famine
The famine caused millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marked a clear end to the period of growth and prosperity from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. -
1337
Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, over the succession to the French throne -
1347
Beginning of Black Death
the Black Death killed 50 million people in the 14th century, or 60 per cent of Europe's entire population. The disastrous mortal disease known as the Black Death spread across Europe in the years 1346-53. -
1358
Jacquerie Uprising
revolt of the French peasantry. The uprising was in part a reaction to widespread poverty during the Hundred Years War. -
1378
Great Schism
The Great Schism was the break of communion between what are now the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, which has lasted since the 11th century. -
1381
English Peasants' Revolt
The English peasants revolt had many causes, The great tensions left from the Black Death, the high taxes from the hundred years war, and instability within the local leadership. -
1400
Last outbreak of bubonic plague
The plague is believed to be the cause of the Black Death that swept through Asia, Europe, and Africa in the 14th century and killed an estimated 50 million people.[1] This was about 25% to 60% of the European population.[ -
1440
Invention of Printing Press
The mechanized printing press was first introduced by Johannes Gutenberg. The movable type reduced the cost of printing books and documents and made it faster to do so. This invention helped spread Martin Luther's Protestant ideas. The printing press has a tremendous impact on today's society because we still use presses to spread news through magazines, books, and documents. -
1469
Isabella and Ferdinand Marriage
Ferdinand and Isabella marry on Oct 19 1469. Isabella was 18 and Ferdinand was a year younger -
1478
Beginning of Spanish Inquisition
Led by Ferdinand and Isabella, the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition was started to exterminate those who opposed Catholicism. Granted permission by the Pope, the Inquisition brutally tortured Jews, Muslims, and non believers in order to combat heresy. This relates to modern day because of the push to keep out refugee Muslims in several European countries. -
1492
Colombus Lands in the Americas
Columbus set sail from Spain with 3 ships on August 3 1492. He spotted land on Oct 12 and claimed it the same day for Spain -
1494
Invasion of Italy by Charles VII of France
Referred to the First Italian War, this war between Charles VIII of France against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Pope Alexander VI started to protect France from any future invasion. Charles received aid from the Medici family. The Pope stepped in to protect his power over the papal states and drove the French army out with the help of Spain's Maximilian I. This event relates heavily to Napolean's invasion of Italy just a couple hundred years later. -
1517
Martin Luther writes 95 Theses
Disagreeing with how the church runs things Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses to spark a debate about the church. -
1521
Diet of Worms
Martin Luther was called to worms to face the diet of the holy Roman Empire and answer charges of heresy -
1521
Cortes Conquers Mexica
Hernando Cortes's historic expedition led to the downfall of the great Aztec empire. His invasion strategy involved pitting civilizations against each other, however, his greatest allies were disease and armor. Cortés successfully entered the Aztec city, sacked it and took Montezuma as hostage. Cortes's conquering of the Aztec empire relates to present day Mexico's because of Christianity and Spanish mixing. -
1526
Turkish Victory at Mohacs
The Battle of Mohacs involved Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent wanted to expand into European and invaded Hungary. Without the help of fellow Christian countries, Hungary was obliterated in battle. This caused the destruction of the Hungarian monarchy and allowed for the Habsburg and Turkish to dominate Hungary. -
1533
Reign of Elizabeth I
The Reign of Queen Elizabeth I was the last monarch of the House of Tudor. Upon reaching the throne, Elizabeth was tasked with decided whether England would be Protestant or Catholic. Instead, she made it legal to be both. At the time, this was unheard of because most countries were only one religion. Elizabeth also was responsible for the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, because she felt that her position was threatened. Her reign was important because she defended England and raised its power. -
1533
Pizarro Conquers Inca Empire
After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 180 Spanish soldiers under conquistador Francisco Pizarro, his brothers, and their native allies captured the Sapa Inca Atahualpa in the 1532 Battle of Cajamarca. -
1534
Henry VIII Ends Papal authority in England
Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment of his marriage, the English Reformation was at the outset more of a political affair than a theological dispute. -
1543
Scientific Revolution
The scientific revolution is a concept used by historians to describe the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry transformed the views of society about nature. -
1545
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was apart of the Catholic counter reformation. This meeting between church officials set goals of restoring the Church's power through discipline of priests and revoking Martin Luther's 95 Theses. This Council was important in restoring the Catholic faith as a dominating force of influence. -
1547
Reign of Ivan the Terrible
The grandson of Ivan the Great, Ivan the Terrible, or Ivan IV, acquired vast amounts of land during his long reign (1533-1584), an era marked by the conquest of the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberia. Ivan the Terrible created a centrally controlled Russian state, imposed by military dominance. Many believe him to have been mentally ill. One of his violent outbursts was perhaps the reason for his son's death. -
1555
Peace of Augsburg
Peace of Augsburg, 1555, temporary settlement within the Holy Roman Empire of the religious conflict arising from the Reformation. -
1572
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
The massacre took place a few days after the wedding day of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre. It was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots -
England defeats Spanish Armada
Spains so called "invincible Armada" is defeated, off the coast of gravelines France, by the English naval force under the command of lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake -
Reign of Henry IV in France
Henry IV was born on December 13, 1553, in Pau, France. Raised a Protestant, he became heir to the French throne through his marriage to Margaret of Valois, but was challenged during a time of religious strife. Despite converting to Catholicism after becoming king of France in 1589, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes to foster religious tolerance. He was killed on May 14, 1610, in Paris, France. -
Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes signed by King Henry IV granted the Calvinist Protestant religious freedom. This was a big thing back then seeing as France was mostly catholic -
English Civil War
English Civil Wars, also called Great Rebellion, (1642–51), fighting that took place in the British Isles between supporters of the monarchy of Charles I (and his son and successor, Charles II) and opposing groups in each of Charles’s kingdoms, including Parliamentarians in England, Covenanters in Scotland, and -
Reign of Louis IV
Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who reigned as King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. -
Rule of Oliver Cromwell
The decision to execute the king in 1649 provoked a Royalist reaction in Ireland and Scotland that threatened the security of the new republic in England and forced Cromwell back into the field. He began his Irish offensive with a massacre of the combined forces of the Catholic Confederates and the Protestant Royalists at Drogheda (September 1649); the following month the town of Wexford, base of the Irish navy, met a similar fate. Scotland’s decision to invade England in support of Charles II. -
English Restoration
he Restoration of the English monarchy took place in the Stuart period. It began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under King Charles II. -
Reign of Peter the Great
Born in Moscow, Russia on June 9, 1672, Peter the Great was a Russian czar in the late 17th century who is best known for his extensive reforms in an attempt to establish Russia as a great nation. He created a strong navy, reorganized his army according to Western standards, secularized schools, administered greater control over the reactionary Orthodox Church, and introduced new administrative and territorial divisions of the country. -
Revocation of Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes had been issued on 13 April 1598 by Henry IV of France. It had granted the Calvinist Protestants of France (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in the predominantly Catholic state. Through the Edict, Henry had aimed to promote civil unity.[3] The Edict treated some Protestants with tolerance and opened a path for secularism. It offered general freedom of conscience to individuals and many specific concessions to the Protestants. -
Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, "The Century of Philosophy". -
Edict of Fontainebleau
Also known as Revocation of Edict of Nantes -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III, Prince of Orange. -
War of Spanish Succession
Conflict that arose out of the disputed succession to the throne of Spain following the death of the childless Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. In an effort to regulate the impending succession, to which there were three principal claimants, England, the Dutch Republic, and France had in October 1698 signed the First Treaty of Partition, agreeing that on the death of Charles II, Prince Joseph Ferdinand, son of the elector of Bavaria. -
Seven Years War
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. -
Industrial Revolution Year
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840 -
Reign of Catherine the Great
After Empress Elizabeth's death in December 25, 1761, Catherine's husband assumed the throne, becoming Peter III, while she received the title of Empress Consort. The pair were leading separate lives at this point, and she had little to do with his rule. Peter was openly cruel to his wife, and often discussed pushing her aside to allow his mistress to rule with him. He soon alienated other nobles, officials and the military with his staunch support for Prussia. -
American Revolution
The American Revolution was a war between Great Britain and the U.S. colonies. Led by General George Washington, the rag tag group of revolutionaries, known as minutemen, composed the first Continental Army. With the help of France, the colonies succeeded in taking down Great Britain and even inspired France to start their own revolt. -
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
The first theme in The Wealth of Nations is that regulations on commerce are ill-founded and counter-productive. The prevailing view was that gold and silver was wealth, and that countries should boost exports and resist imports in order to maximize this metal wealth. Smith’s radical insight was that a nation’s wealth is really the stream of goods and services that it creates. Today, we would call it gross national product. And the way to maximise it, he argued, was not to restrict it. -
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. -
Watt Patents Steam Engine
James Watt, who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1781, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. -
Storming of the Bastille
On 14 July 1789, a state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The prison had become a symbol of the monarchy's dictatorial rule, and the event became one of the defining moments in the Revolution that followed. -
French Revolution
A watershed event in modern European history, the French Revolution began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens razed and redesigned their country’s political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as absolute monarchy and the feudal system. Like the American Revolution before it, the French Revolution was influenced by Enlightenment ideals. -
Ratification of US Constitution
Beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify it. -
Wallstonecraft’s Vind. of Rts. of Women
written by the 18th-century British proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society. -
Execution of Louis XVI
Although outwardly accepting the revolution, Louis resisted the advice of constitutional monarchists who sought to reform the monarchy in order to save it; he also permitted the reactionary plotting of his unpopular queen, Marie Antoinette. In October 1789, a mob marched on Versailles and forced the royal couple to move to Tuileries; in June 1791, opposition to the royal pair had become so fierce that the two were forced to flee to Austria. -
Reign of Terror
After the death of Louis XVI in 1793, the Reign of Terror began. The first victim was Marie Antoinette. She had been imprisoned with her children after she was separated from Louis. First they took her son Louis Charles from her (often called the lost dauphin, or Louis XVII). He disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Then she led off a parade of prominent and not-so-prominent citizens to their deaths. -
Napoleon invades Russia
On 7 September, the French caught up with the Russian army which had dug itself in on hillsides before a small town called Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow. The battle that followed was the bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars until that point, involving more than 250,000 soldiers and resulting in 70,000 casualties. The French gained a tactical victory, but at the cost of 49 general officers and thousands of men. -
Congress of Vienna
The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. -
Reign of Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a period in 1815 known as the Hundred Days. -
Napoleon defeated and exiled
A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: a British-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt. Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. -
Battle of Waterloo
A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: a British-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt. The battle marked the end of the 20 year Napoleonic Wars. -
Karlsbad Decrees
The Carlsbad Decrees were a set of reactionary restrictions introduced in the states of the German Confederation by resolution of the Bundesversammlung -
Reign of Charles X
His rule of almost six years ended in the July Revolution of 1830, which resulted in his abdication and the election of Louis Philippe I as King of the French. -
Stephenson's Rocket
t was built for, and won, the Rainhill Trials held by the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1829 to choose the best design to power the railway. Rocket was designed by Robert Stephenson in 1829. -
Reign of Louis Phillippe
He was proclaimed king in 1830 after his cousin Charles X was forced to abdicate in the wake of the events of the July Revolution of that year. His government, known as the July Monarchy, was dominated by members of a wealthy French elite and numerous former Napoleonic officials. -
France invades Algeria
In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a naval blockade following which France invaded and quickly seized Algiers in 1830, and rapidly took control of other coastal communities. -
British Reform Act
In 1832, Parliament passed a law changing the British electoral system. It was known as the Great Reform Act. This was a response to many years of people criticising the electoral system as unfair. -
Great Famine Ireland
The Great Hunger was a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1849. It is sometimes referred to, mostly outside Ireland, as the Irish Potato Famine, because about two-fifths of the population was solely reliant on this cheap crop for a number of historical reasons. -
Reign of Napoleon III
he was the first Head of State of France to hold the title of President, the first elected by a direct popular vote, and the youngest until the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. Barred by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, he organized a self-coup d'état in 1851 and then took the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of his uncle's coronation. -
Great Exhibition in London
It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century, and it was a much anticipated event. -
Cholera outbreak London
The Broad Street cholera outbreak was a severe outbreak of cholera that occurred in 1854 near Broad Street in the Soho district of London, England. Caused by dirty water. -
Darwin's Origin of Species
Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief. Darwin proposed that no being or species has been specifically created but instead all are in a constant struggle against extinction. -
Opening of Suez Canal
the Suez Canal was opened to navigation. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. -
Franco-Prussian war
a conflict between the Second French Empire of Napoleon III and the German states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. -
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. Princip was one of a group of six assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. -
World War I
a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a result of the war, a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling trench warfare. -
opening of Panama Canal
the Panama Canal was opened to traffic. Panama later pushed to revoke the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, and in 1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos signed a treaty to turn over the canal to Panama by the end of the century. -
Sinking of Lusitania
A German U-boat sunk a British luxury liner called the RMS Lusitania. 1,198 people lost their lives, including 128 Americans. Its sinking caused outrage both in Britain and in the US and ultimately led to the USA declaring war against Germany. Bringing the USA into WW1. -
February Revolution in Russia
The February Revolution began in 1917. Riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupted in St. Petersburg. Most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of the czarist regime.The Russian Revolution removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union, replacing Russia's traditional monarchy with the world's first Communist state. -
USA Enters WW1
Because of the German U-boats sinking American ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Wilson then asked Congress for "a war to end all wars" that would "make the world safe for democracy". Congress voted to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917 and soon the US was in WW1. -
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Russian czarist regime. Leon Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized without the success of the world revolution. A revolutionary wave caused by the Russian Revolution lasted until 1923. -
Treaty of Versailles
World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. -
Mussolini in Italy
In 1921, the Fascist Party was invited to join the coalition government of Italy where many small parties worked together in government. Italy seemed to be slipping into political chaos in 1922. The Black Shirts ( followers of Mussolini) marched on Rome and Mussolini presented himself as the person to restore order. King Victor Emmanuel invited Mussolini to form a government without fight. -
Stalin Controls Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Stalin rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union. -
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was an attempt in 1924 to solve the World War I reparations problem that Germany had to pay, which involved politics following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. -
Kellogg-Briand Pact
The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928. Sometimes called the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War, but it had little effect in stopping the rising militarism of the 1930s or preventing World War II. -
National Socialist Party Come to Power in Germany
In the July 1932 elections, the national socialist party won 230 out of 608 seats in the “Reichstag,” or lower German parliament. This allowed for Hitler to be appointed German chancellor and his Nazi government soon came to control every aspect of German life. Under Nazi rule, all other political parties were banned. -
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
In September 1931, the Japanese claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged their railway, and so they attacked the Chinese army who had just executed a Japanese spy. Most the Chinese army surrendered or were slaughtered -
Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg, Germany, was chosen as a site for trials that took place in 1945 and 1946. Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals. Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. -
Yalta Conferance
Argonaut Conference, held from 4 to 11 February, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union for the purpose of discussing Germany and Europe's postwar reorganization. -
Postdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. (In some older documents it is also referred to as the Berlin Conference of the Three Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and UK. -
End of WW2 in Europe
The German Instrument of Surrender signed at Reims, 8 May 1945
West European CampaignThe final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Allies took place in late April and early May 1945. -
Founding of Israel
Creation of the State of Israel. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the British assumed control of Palestine. In November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
Berlin Airlift
Truman did not want to cause World War III. Instead, he ordered a massive airlift of supplies into West Berlin. On June 26, 1948, the first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. -
Creation of NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the principal support of the United States). The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union also gave some assistance to the North. -
Creation of Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954, but it is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe. -
Building of Berlin Wall
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight, on 13 August 1961. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962 , the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day (October 16–28 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.[ -
OPEC Oil Embargo
Oil Embargo, 1973–1974. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations. -
Helsinki Accords
The Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Finlandia Hall of Helsinki, Finland, during July and August 1, 1975. Thirty-five states, including the US, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status. -
Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe
Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, 1989. On November 9, 1989, thousands of jubilant Germans brought down the most visible symbol of division at the heart of Europe the Berlin Wall. By 1990, the former communist leaders were out of power, free elections were held, and Germany was whole again.
