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Nikita Khrushchev replaces Joseph Stalin
Stalin died in March 1953, his death triggered a power struggle in which Nikita Khrushchev after several years emerged victorious against Georgy Malenkov. Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions: in 1956 and 1962. -
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. -
NATO formed
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949 -
China goes red
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
Korean War Begins
The Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. -
United States tests first Hydrogen Bomb
The United States detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States a short-lived advantage in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. -
Dwight Eisenhower is elected
The United States presidential election of 1952 was the 42nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson, ending a string of Democratic Party wins that stretched back to 1932. -
Sputnik Launched
The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
President Kennedy is elected
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. -
Russians send the first man into space
On 12 April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space when he launched into orbit on the Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft (Vostok 1) -
Bay of Pigs invasion fails
Fifty years ago, shortly before midnight on 16 April 1961, a group of some 1,500 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the CIA launched an ill-fated invasion of Cuba from the sea in the Bay of Pigs. The plan was to overthrow Fidel Castro and his revolution. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
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 of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Dr. King's ''I Have a Dream'' Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 -
John F Kennedy is assassinated
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza. -
The Beatles arrive in the United States
An estimated four thousand Beatles' fans were present on 7 February 1964 as Pan Am Flight 101 left Heathrow Airport. Among the passengers were the Beatles, on their first trip to the United States as a band, with their entourage of photographers and journalists, and Phil Spector. -
China explodes atomic bomb
Chairman Mao Zedong called on Chinese scientists to rely on their own efforts and develop China's atomic bomb within eight years.On October 16, 1964, China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb. The Chinese people had finally developed their own nuclear technology. -
First NFL Football Super Bowl
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court
President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. CST. -
Robert Kennedy is assassinated
On June 5 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized. -
Tet Offensive
In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam -
Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
In 1967, counterculture and anti-Vietnam War protest groups had been promising to come to Chicago and disrupt the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order. For eight days, the protesters and the Chicago Police Department met in the streets and parks of Chicago while the U.S. Democratic Party met at the convention in the International Amphitheater -
American astronauts land on the moon
The lunar module touched down on the moon's Sea of Tranquility, a large basaltic region, at 4:17 p.m. EDT. Armstrong notified Houston with the historic words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." -
Woodstock Concert
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. -
Watergate Burglaries
Five men were discovered inside the DNC office and arrested. They were Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. -
Paris Peace Accords end the Vietnam War
President Richard M. Nixon assumed responsibility for the Vietnam War as he swore the oath of office on January 20, 1969. He knew that ending this war honorably was essential to his success in the presidency. -
President Nixon resigns
By late 1973, the Watergate scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support. On August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days. -
Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
In December 1979, in the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet 40th Army invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) against a growing insurgency. -
President Reagan is shot
President Ronald Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. -
Mikhael Gorbachev assumes control in the Soviet Union
The Congress of People’s Deputies elects General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the new president of the Soviet Union. -
Chernobyl Disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, 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, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor.
