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Russian Revolution
Tsar Nicolas ll was forced to abdicate on March 15 due to a revolution by Petrograde insurgents. This is when the Romanov dynasty came to an end. A provisional government was then formed to take over. Then on November 7th 1917 the Bolsheviks staged a coup and took power. -
Potsdam Conference
Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin established a council of foreign ministers and a central allied control council for administration of Germany. A good amount on the meeting was also focused on post war Europe. -
Atomic Bomb-Hiroshima & Nagasaki
On August 6th 1945 the United States had a B-29 bomber drop the worlds first atomic bomb onto the city of Hiroshima, Japan. This bomb killed nearly 80,000 people instantly and tens of thousands died later. Three days later the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, Japan; killing over 40,000 people. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain is a term that received prominence after Winston Churchill’s speech in which he said that an “iron curtain has descended” across Europe. He was referring to the boundary line that divided Europe in two different political areas: Western Europe had political freedom, while Eastern Europe was under communist Soviet rule. -
Truman Doctrine
President Truman promised to help and provide resources for any country facing a Communist takeover. -
Hollywood 10
In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. This was an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its time of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. -
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 Blockade and Airlift
Soviet Union blocked Western Allies from getting to part of Berlin so the U.S. and England flew in supplies for the people of West Berlin and it lasted 15 months and this act showed the U.S. commitment. -
NATO
NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization .It's purpose during the Cold War was to unify and strengthen the Western Allies' military response to a possible invasion of western Europe by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. -
Soviet Bomb Test
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings and placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects.The explosion, which at 20 kilotons was roughly equal to “Trinity,” the first U.S. atomic explosion, destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border.The main cause of this war was that the North Korea, supported by the Soviet Union and China, invaded South Korea, which was supported by the United States. It ended when General MacArthur, leader of the United Nations forces, drove the North Koreans back across the divide. Ended July 27, 1953 -
Khruschev Takes over
After Stalin took control of the Soviet Union in 1924, Khrushchev became a follower of this dictator. This loyalty served him well, because he was one of the Bolsheviks who survived Stalin’s political purges. When Stalin died in March 1953, Khrushchev was overlooked in favor of Malenkov. So he organized a coalition of Soviet politicians to force Malenkov to relinquish the post of first secretary. He later initiated a process of “de-Stalinization” that made Soviet society less repressive. -
Eisenhower’s Massive Retaliation Policy
President Eisenhower adopted a foreign policy of “massive retaliation.” This policy was meant to counter the growing Soviet threat. It viewed nuclear weapons as a means of deterring war and as a first recourse should deterrence fail. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
These hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. They dominated national television from April to June 1954.The senate was trying to find out whether Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had used improper influence to win preferential treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former member of the senator’s staff who had been drafted. -
Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union and seven other countries signed a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact. Which was a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. This treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. -
The Vietnam War
Nov 1, 1955 – Apr 30, 1975
The Vietnam War was a long war that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and the U.S.. 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, & more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians.The war divided American even after President Nixon with drawled the U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. -
Hungarian Revolution
This was sparked by a speech from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He attacked the period of Joseph Stalin’s rule which encouraged the Hungarians, they rebelled. Rebels won the first phase of the revolution,and Imre Nagy became premier, agreeing to establish a multiparty system. On November 1, 1956, he declared Hungarian neutrality and appealed to the United Nations for support but this did not stop the fighting and on November 4 the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to stop the revolution. -
U2 Incident
During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. They captured Francis Gary Powers, who was the pilot. Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. CIA had been flying spy missions over the USSR for 7 years. The Soviets convicted Powers on espionage charges and sentenced him to 10 years in prison -
Bay of Pigs invasion
In April 1961, the CIA launched a definitive strike; a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. However, the invasion very poorly. The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. -
Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” between East and West Berlin. It symbolized the Cold War and divide between the communist Soviet bloc and the western democratic bloc -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Oct 16, 1962 – Oct 28, 1962
During this crisis leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962. This was because the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. -
Detente under Nixon
Détente, Period of the easing of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1979. The era was a time of increased trade and cooperation with the Soviet Union and the signing of the SALT treaties. Relations cooled again with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. -
The Reagan Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration. It purpose was to overwhelm the global influence of the Soviet Union in an attempt to end the Cold War. -
Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech
"Tear down this wall!" was a statement made by US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War came to an end, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said that citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country’s borders.The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
