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Russian Communist Revolution
The Russian Revolution took place in 1917, during the final phase of World War I. It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of USSR, replacing Russia’s traditional monarchy with the world’s first Communist state. in October, a second Russian Revolution placed the Bolsheviks as the leaders of Russia, resulting in the creation of the world's first communist country. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. The details of the Versailles Treaty had been debated and finalized at the Paris Peace Conference. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an international organization created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes. It was first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points plan for peace in Europe, but the United States was never a member. It dissolved on April 18, 1946 and the United Nations assumed some of its functions. -
Yalta Conference
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta. Issue of what to do with Germany could not be solved. They decided that Germany would be divided into four occupation zones controlled by each of the Allies, including France. -
United Nations
The united Nations is an organization of independant states to promote international peace and security. representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter. Those delegates deliberated on the basis of proposals worked out by the representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. -
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of 13 trials held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. The trials were held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II for the prosecution of members of the political, military, and economic leadership of defeated Nazi Germany. The trials were for participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace,planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against humanity. -
Iron Curtain Speech
The Iron Curtain Speech was spoken by Winstron Churchill in the beginning of the Cold War. It stated that behind an "Iron Curtain" were all the capitals of central and Eastern Europe, and that they were under the control of Moscow. He blamed USSR for this. The countries west of it were democracies and to the east were communist under the control of USSR with puppet governments, no freedom for the poeple and imposed an communist economy and government. -
Baruch Plan
The United States presents the Baruch Plan for the international control of atomic weapons to the United Nations. Part of their charge was to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, including the atomic bomb. The Soviets rejected the Baruch Plan, since it would have left the United States to stop the soviet nuclear program.The failure of the plan to gain acceptance resulted in a dangerous nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. -
General Assembly
A peace making organization that replaced the League of Nations. It was created after WWll to prevent other similar conflicts and to discuss world problems. It started as 51 members, now up to 193. Some objectives include maintaining peace, security, promoting human rights, and protecting the environment. -
Truman Doctrine
Truman's address officially announced the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine was Truman's plege to provide economic and military aid to countries threatened by Communism A lot of people didn't support it, but it did set guidelines. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program was signed by President Truman from the US. The Marshall Plan was the American initiative to aid Europe. In order to obtain money, European nations had to use money recieved to purchase US goods. -
Berlin Airlift
In June of 1948, Soviets blocked all roads / railways and cut off electrical power to West Berlin. US sent massive airlift of supplies. 324 days cargo planes fly 2m tons of vital supplies. -
Creation of NATO
NATO was created to form an alliance to stand against the Soviet Union. If any of the countries within this alliance were to be attacked, all alliances would go to war to stop the threat. It was formed under the US leadership to group most of the western European powers and Canada in a defensive alliance against Soviets. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution was the highest point of the Chinese Communist Party's drive to power since its founding in 1921 and the second part of Chinese Civil War. Mao Tse Tung took over the mainland and pushed the Nationalists under Chang Kai-shek to just one island. Mao's China, being communist, was called Red China, and Chang's, being free, was known as Nationalist China. The USA supported the Nationalists, and the Soviets supported Mao. -
Joseph McCarthy Speech
in 1950, Joseph McCarthy said in a speech that he has a list with names of 200 members of the department of state that are known communists. The speech made McCarthy known and caused a nationwide panic about trouble in America's government. This specch connects to the Cold War by convincing the nation that soviet spies were here in America in our government. -
Korean War
The Korean War seemed to be a war between South and North Korea, but the US and USSR were using it to fight without having a ‘hot war’. The US went to war in Korea for three reasons, 'domino theory', to undermine communism, and the USA was in a competition for world domination with the USSR. This war started because USSR wanted to spread Communism to the Pacific. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was the opposite of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Seperated by "The Iron Curtain". They were both Military and Economic Alliances with disadvantages and advantages. -
Sputnik launched
On October 4, 1967, The Soviet Union changed history. They launched the first satellite into space, Sputnik. It took 98 minutes to orbit around earth. That launch allowed new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. the launch of Sputnik marked the start of the space age and the space race against US and USSR. -
MAD
MAD stands for Mutual Assured Destruction. It is a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack. For example, if the US were to attack the Soviet Union using nuclear wapons, then the Soviet Union would respond in the same way. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Some of the Cuban refugees, with thte help of the US government, tried to invade Cuba in order to topple Castro from power. Their landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba did not achieve any support among the local Cuban population. AS a result, the invasion failed miserably. It further strained the bad relations between Cuba and the US. -
Fidel Castro Proclaims Communist Cuba
In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that, under his leadership, Cuba would become a Communist state. His announcement came nearly eight months after the disastrous, US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion. Cuba's adoption of Communism, coupled with the country's proximity to the US, was a key element in the Cold War and continues to affect the international relations. -
Building of Berlin Wall begins
The Berlin Wall was built in the dead of night. It was the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany. It was also the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened under JFK's presidentsy. It happened after the Bay of Pigs. It was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other. The crisis is known as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear war. It's the first documented instance of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Eventually JFK and Khrushev came to an agreement of US removing missiles in Turkey and Soviets remove missiles in Cuba. -
President Kennedy gives a speech in Berlin
In the summer of 1963, President Kennedy visited Berlin. In the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Kennedy gave one of his most memorable speeches. No other American politician had met with such joy and enthusiasm on a visit to Germany. -
U.S. sends troops to Vietnam
The first U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam. This was the first arrival for combat troops in South Vietnam and it was heard all around the world about how the U.S. is getting more involved. As soon as the troops arrived in Vietnam the Vietcong shoot gunfire, but no U.S. troops were injured. -
Nuclear Deterrent
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union each built a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Soviet policy rested on the conviction that a nuclear war could be fought and won. The United States adopted nuclear deterrence, the credible threat of retaliation to forestall enemy attack. United States during the 1950s developed and deployed several types of delivery systems for attacking the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons called the Strategic Triad. -
Non-Proliferation Agreement
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The treaty recognizes five states as nuclear-weapon states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.(all members of united nations security council). -
SALT I
SALT I, the first series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, extended from November 1969 to May 1972. During that period the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the first agreements to place limits and restraints on some of their central and most important armaments. In a Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, they moved to end an emerging competition in defensive systems that threatened to spur offensive competition to still greater heights. -
Apollo 11
The Apollo 11 mission was one of the most significant events in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the USSR launched Sputnik, the first satellite, and successfully sent a man into space, America rushed to prompt the creation of the Apollo program. Apollo 11 was a mission to complete the first man on the moon. The mission was considered a great success, and was a win for the United States in the Space Race. -
Kent State Shootings
occurred at Kent State University Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others. Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign presented by president Nixon. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance. It resulted in student strike. -
Fall of Saigon
Saigon, capital city of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces on April 30th 1975. The fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War. After the introduction of Vietnamisation by President Nixon, US forces in South Vietnam had been constantly reduced leaving the military of South Vietnam to defend their country against the North.By 1975, what remained of the South Vietnamese Army was not capable of withstanding the North and it was certain that Saigon would fall to communist forces. -
Deng Xioping came to power
Deng Xiaoping [Credit: © Wally McNamee/Corbis]Chinese Deng Xioping was a communist leader, who was the most powerful figure in the People’s Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. He abandoned many orthodox communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate elements of the free-enterprise system into the Chinese economy. Xioping was against democracy, China was communst. China's economy grew stronger, Deng helped China become a more modern nation. -
Pope John Paul II
The pope was a key source of information and social movement for people worldwide. He criticized much of the Communist world and helped move people towards the elimination of communism. The pope controls the morals of over 1 billion people worldwide, and if he denounces communism, it will have long sweeping effects. -
Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister
When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, many in the West had come to believe that the Cold War could not and should not be won, that anti-Communism was morally wrong, and that the future lay in détente between the superpowers and the evolution of democracy into state socialism. By the time she left office, the Berlin Wall had fallen and Eastern Europe was free. A year later, the Soviet Union crumbled into the dustbin of history. Democracy and freedom were on the advance. -
SALT II
Agreement signed in 1979 by Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev after the second round of Strategic Arms Limitations Talks. It restricted the number of each side's strategic weapons, and its goal was to replace the Interim Agreement reached in SALT I. The U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, partly in protest to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but both countries observed its major limitations until 1986. -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support the communist government in that country. Adding Afghanistan to the Soviet sphere of influence would expand its buffer zone against the non-communist countries of Iran and Pakistan. It would also bring Russia closer to the Middle East and further influence other Arab nations. It's also been revealed that the Americans gently prodded the Soviets to enter Afghanistan to further drain its money and military resources. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise. There had been signs that the Communist block was weakening, but the East German Communist leaders insisted that East Germany just needed a moderate change rather than a drastic one. After the Berlin Wall came down, East and West Germany reunified into a single German state on October 3, 1990. -
Lech Walesa
First non-communist controlled trade union in a Warsaw-Pact country. It reached 9.5 members before September 1981. It was headed by Lech Walesa and was what started Poland in moving towards a socialist government.First time people fought against communism in a communist country. -
START I
START was the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It was a treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It entered into force in 1994. -
START II
START II complemented, rather than replaced, the earlier START I. It established a limit on strategic weapons for each Party, with reductions to be implemented in two phases. START II was to remain in force for the duration of START I.
