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Yalta/Crimea conference
videoThe "Yalta Conference" was a World War II meeting between the heads of state of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in February, 1945 at Yalta, in the Crimea, to plan the occupation of postwar Germany. This conference was significant because it marked the beggining of the Cold War.
Analysis - Eve though Yalta conference was much like the Paris Peace conference, during the Yalta conference, the victors decided to split up Germany. -
Creation of the United Nations
** Date is not accurate **
The United Nations was founded in 1945. It replaced the League of Nations after World War II in order to prevent future conflicts. Due to the widespread recognition that humankind did not want to start World War III, the UN was established to replace the League of Nations in order to maintain international peace. The plan for a new world organization was begun under the U.S. State Department. -
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
VideoThe atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in 1945. These two events represent the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare to date.
The U.S knew that Japan wasn't easy to infiltrate and defeat. It was estimated that 1 million soldiers would not have been enough. So, ultimately the U.S. inferred that in order to make Japan surrender this was needed. -
The Iron Curtain Speech
VideoAt the request of Westminster College in the small Missouri town of Fulton (population of 7,000), Churchill gave his now famous "Iron Curtain" speech to a crowd of 40,000. In the speech, Churchill said that behind an "Iron Curtain" were all the capitals of central and Eastern Europe, and that they were under the control of Moscow.Churchill blamed USSR for this problem. The countries west of the "iron curtain" were all the democracies whereas the countries east of the "curtain" were communists. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was the name given to a policy announced by US President Harry Truman. The Truman Doctrine was a form of American foreign policy for countries that resisted communism while simultaneously preventing the spread of it. Like the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine agreed to help the countries by providing them aid economically and militarily. Analysis - This was basically a part of the Cold War as countries like Turkey were being encroached by communism which the U.S. didn't want -
The Marshall Plan is introduced
videoThe Marshall Plan was a U.S.-sponsored program implemented following the second world war to aid European countries that had been destroyed as a result of the war. The Marshall Plan gave over $13 billion in aide to European nations and was key in revitalizing the post-war economies of these nations. The plan focused on modernizing both business and industrial practices across Europe in order to bring down trade barriers. By 1952 U.S. funding ended, the plan was a success. -
Pakistan gains Independence
Finally, on this day Muhammad Ali JInnah is able to create a muslim state of Pakistan. -
The Assassination of Gandhi
videoGandhi was a radical Indian leader in the struggle for freedom against the British who believed that non-violence and passive resistance were the means to solve any issue. During the split between India and Pakistan, tensions arose as Gandhi was still trying to avoid a separation. Due to this attitude of his, some hindi extremists were unhappy as they wanted to get rid of the muslims. This resulted in Nathuram Ghodse taking the life of Gandhi. -
The State of Isreal founded
Years of hope for a land to themselves had finally come to fruition for the Jewish population as the British created a state of Israel just for the Jews in the Arab land. This cam with a heavy cost though, as it evoked a sense of nationalism amingst the muslim Arabs creating chaos and conflits. -
The creation of NATO
NATO is a security alliance between 28 countries. It is often said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. This is only partially true. In fact, the Alliance’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration. -
Soviet Union has atomic Bomb
the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. It came as a great shock to the United States because they were not expecting the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapon knowledge so soon. Previously, the United States had used two atomic bombs on Japan to cause them to surrender during World War II. The impact that the possession of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union had upon the United States was that it caused Americans to question their own safety. -
Mao Zedong takes over China
Mao proclaimed the birth of the People's Republic of China—with the statement “The central government of the People’s republic of China is established!”—before a crowd of 500,000 to 1 million people at Tiananmen Square. Mao followed the Marxist ideology and led the Communist Party to victory against the Kuomintang. His political actions produced a large amount of controversy while some refer to him as a great revolutionary leader and others view him as much like Hitler and Stalin (dictators). -
U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb
In the United States there had been urgent secret discussion of a new and vastly powerful 'super-bomb', but apparently the first President Truman heard of it was early in October 1949. Some of the Los Alamos scientists feared that the USSR might already be working on a hydrogen bomb, 800 times as much as the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. Therefore, Senator Brien McMahon, chairman of the joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee, pressed the president for a crash programme. -
The Korean War begins
This was the day when Communist North Korea, with the intent of making Korea larger, invaded South Korea. Since South Korea was democratic, it became the struggle between communismand democracy, thus, the U.S. got involved. They pleaded the UN to send troops to their aid and later in fact, they went against North Korea and pushed them as far as China. The war ended with an agreement to maintain a border. -
South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race
Date is not accurate
South Africans were forced by the white people to carry ID cards identifying their race increasing racism and apartheid in South Africa. -
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
Numerous state and local laws had been created around the United States after the Civil War. Across the country, blacks and whites were legally forced to use separate train cars, separate drinking fountains, separate schools, separate entrances into buildings, and much more. Segregation was the law. On May 17, 1954, the law was changed. In the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overturned the decision by ruling that segregation was unequal. -
Warsaw Pact signed
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites signed a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. Analysis - This was basically a retaliation to NATO. -
Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the "Great Leap Forward"
The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s attempt to modernise China’s economy so that by 1988, China would have an economy that rivalled America. Mao had toured China and concluded that the Chinese people were capable of anything and the two primary tasks that he felt they should target was industry and agriculture. Mao announced a second Five Year Plan to last from 1958 to 1963. This plan was called the Great Leap Forward. -
NASA founded.
start of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was the beginning of a rich history of unique scientific and technological achievements in human space flight, aeronautics, space science, and space applications. Formed as a result of the Sputnik crisis of confidence, NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for human space flight. -
Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
On February 16, 1959, Fidel Castro is sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a guerrilla campaign that forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. Castro, who became commander in chief of Cuba's armed forces after Batista was ousted on January 1, replaced the more moderate Miro Cardona as head of the country's new provisional government. -
Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev
the monumental struggle between the U.S. and the USSR in the Cold War all boiled down to two men in a make-believe kitchen. Food was never more political. It was on this day that vice president Nixon and Khrushchev mocked each other while secretly installing weapons in Turkey and cuba respectively. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an attempt to overthrow the government of Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. The feud between the U.S. government and Castro's regime led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to cut off relations with Cuba on January 1961. An invasion was planned for the Island with over a thousand armed cuban exiles. Soon after beginning, the invasion was failing and was put to a stop by Castro's army. Over a hundred exiles were killed and over a thousand were held prisoners. -
JFK Gives "Man on the Moon" Speech
Video
In this speech, JFK stated that the United States should set as a goal the "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" by the end of the decade. Acknowledging that the Soviets had a head start in their space program, Kennedy urged the U.S. to work diligently to lead the achievements of space travel because "in many ways [it] may hold the key to our future on earth." -
Berlin wall built
Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall--the Berlin Wall--to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War--a literal "iron curtain" dividing Europe.Between 1949 and 1961, some 2.5 million East Germans fled from East to West Germany because of their dissatisfaction with communism. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba. But since, U.S had missiles in Turkey, Khrushchev concluded that an attack was not worth. He removed the missiles, -
Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His "I Have a Dream" Speech
It was on this day that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech in order to win equal rights for Negroes in America. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader of African Americans inspired by the principles and success of Mahatma Gandhi. -
Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was born in the presidency of John F Kennedy who was elected president in 1960. His support of civil rights issue in previous years had been patchy - he had opposed Eisenhower’s 1957 Act to keep in with the Democrats hierarchy as he had plans to run for president as well as Johnson. The new president was faced with facts that were indisputable and came from the organisation created in the 1960 Civil Rights Act to analyse civil rights issue in America - the CRC.
