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Potsdam Conference
Conference at the end of the war in Europe between the U.S., Russia, and UK. Discussion of post-war Germany. Stalin promises free elections in E. Europe -
Atomic Bombs
The United States dropped two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th of August 1945. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. -
Long Telegram
In February 1946, George Kennan's “Long Telegram” from Moscow helped articulate the U.S. government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets and became the basis for the U.S. “containment” strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. -
Iron Curtain Speech
The Iron Curtain speech by former British prime minister Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, in which he stressed the necessity for the United States and Britain to act as the guardians of peace and stability against the menace of Soviet communism, which had lowered an “iron curtain”. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations thought to be threatened by Soviet communism. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative passed in 1948 for foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
NATO
NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) primary purpose 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. -
Berlin Airlift
The crisis started on June 24, 1948, when Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany. The crisis ended on May 12, 1949, when Soviet forces lifted the blockade on land access to western Berlin. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
First Soviet Bomb Test
The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test, at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. The device had a yield of 22 kilotons. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution, known in mainland China as the War of Liberation, was the conflict, led by the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Mao Zedong, that resulted in the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. -
Hollywood 10
10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations. -
Alger Hiss case
Alger Hiss was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930's. Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950, following a lengthy espionage investigation by the FBI and its partners. -
Rosenberg trial
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, the first American civilians to be executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime. -
Korean Armistice
The Korean Armistice Agreement is an armistice that brought about a complete cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the decisive engagement in the First Indochina War. It consisted of a struggle between French and Viet Minh forces for control of a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was a countrywide revolution against the Stalinist government of the Hungarian People's Republic and the Hungarian domestic policies imposed by the USSR. -
U2 Incident
a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. The single-seat aircraft, flown by pilot Francis Gary Powers, was hit by an S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile and crashed near Sverdlovsk. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin. Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 1-month, 4 day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
1968 riots at Democratic convention
at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. Over the course of 24 hours, the predominant American line of thought on the Cold War with the Soviet Union was shattered. -
Tet offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Kent State
The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
All parties to the conflict, including South Vietnam, signed the final agreement in Paris. As it turned out, only America honored the cease-fire. A little over 2 years later, 30 North Vietnamese divisions conquered the South and restored peace in Vietnam. -
Fall of Sagion
The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese, was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong. -
Reagan elected
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "Star Wars program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. -
"Tear down this wall" speech
also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, was a speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Five days after half a million people gathered in East Berlin in a mass protest, that the Berlin Wall dividing communist East Germany from West Germany crumbled. East German leaders had tried to calm mounting protests by loosening the borders, making travel easier for East Germans.