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McCarthyism begins
Senator Joseph McCarthy begins his attacks on suspected Communists around the early 1950s. Without providing evidence, McCarthy attacked innocent members of the public, labeling them communists. All of the hearings he triggered were fully unconstitutional but the Senate did nothing to stop him.McCarthy adeptly manipulated the media, told ever more outrageous stories concerning the communist conspiracy in the United States. -
Rosenberg Spy Case
In 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel; they were indicted for conspiracy to transmit classified military information to the Soviet Union. In the trial that followed the government charged that in 1944 and 1945 the Rosenbergs had persuaded Ethel's brother,an employee at the Los Alamos atomic bomb project to provide top-secret data on nuclear weapons.Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty and received the death sentence. -
Korean War
World War II divided Korea into a Communist, northern half and an American-occupied southern half, divided at the 38th parallel. The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. -
John Foster Dulles is Secretary of State
Eisenhower's Sec. of State; harsh anti-Communist; called for more radical measures to roll back communism where it had already spread. He pursued a policy of opposition to the USSR by providing aid to American allies (1888-1959) -
U.S. overthrows Iranian government
Under orders from President Eisenhower, the CIA organized a military coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.Britain, unhappy that Iran nationalized its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup and pressed the United States to join a joint operation to remove Mossadeqh.The coup saw the transition of Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi from a constitutional monarch to an authoritarian one who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to his power -
Khrushchev comes to power in the Soviet Union
The death of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953 created a tremendous vacuum in Soviet leadership. Though their was a growing power struggle between Malenkov and Nikita Khruschev,Khrushchev was overlooked in favor of Malenkov. It did not take long for Khrushchev to take advantage of the mediocre Malenkov. He organized a coalition of Soviet politicians to force Malenkov to relinquish the post of first secretary—the more important post, since it controlled the party apparatus in the Soviet Union. -
Guatemala elects Jacobo Arbenz
To prohibit the spread of communism to the nations of Latin America during the Cold War, the president of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, asked U.S. assistance to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan leader, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.PresidentTruman authorized the shipment of weapons and money to anti-Arbenz groups to overthrow him but Arbenz's representatives found out and tried to put a stop to it. In the end result Arbenz was overthrown and Military Junta assumed power. -
Hungarians overthrow Communist government
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956.The revolt began as a student demonstration, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building,calling out their demands.Despite the failure of the uprising,it was highly influential, and came to play a role in the downfall of the Soviet Union. -
Sputnik Launched
The Soviet Union launched the earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1. The successful launch came as a shock to experts and citizens in the United States, who had hoped that the United States would accomplish this scientific advancement first.The fact that the Soviets were successful fed fears that the U.S. military had generally fallen behind in developing new technology. As a result, the launch of Sputnik served to intensify the arms race and raise Cold War tensions. -
Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba
Cuban leader Fidel Castro established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.Castro’s Cuba also had a highly antagonistic relationship with the U.S. The U.S. governments unsuccessfully attempted to remove him, resulting in the Bay of Pigs(1961) invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis(1962).
