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Russian Communist Revolution
(March 8, 1917- November 7, 1917) Two revolutions in 1917, the first of which overthrew the imperial government and the second placed the Bolsheviks in power. It was a violent revolution that marked the end of centuries of Russian Imperial Rule. These revolutions settled into motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union. -
Treaty of Versailles
(June 28, 1919– January 21, 1920) The Treaty of Versailles ended after World War I. This was a harsh treaty that targeted the central powers, especially Germany. There were several terms of this treaty, and it stated that Germany needed to pay reparations to the allies. This was a treaty for peace, that ended up failing and resulting in the Cold War. -
League of Nations
(January 10, 1920) This was an international organization created after the first world war to resolve international disputes. The end of the cold war triggered an unprecedented upsurge in UN commitments. Lessons of World War II fell short of early hopes due to the emerging of the Cold War. -
Yalta Conference
(Feb 4, 1945 – Feb 11, 1945) This meeting consisted of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin Roosevelt as World War II was coming to an end. Its purpose was to discuss the future of the world after the war, and reestablish the nations conquered by Germany. The Yalta conference helped lead the Cold War by giving the Soviets control over eastern Europe. It made the west feel that the USSR was bent on expanding communism. -
The United Nations are Established
(October 24, 1945) In 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at wartime conventions with interests to start “a general international organization to maintain peace and security.” On April 25, 1945, 50 representatives met in San Francisco and helped to create the United Nations. -
Nuremberg Trials
(November 20, 1945-October 1, 1946) The Nuremberg Trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany. The allies prosecuted German military leaders and officials, and other major war criminals, for crimes they committed during World War II. Twelve prominent Nazi’s were sentenced to death. The reunification of Germany marked the beginning of a positive approach to the Nuremberg legacy: a new generation of judges, politicians, and academics. -
Baruch Plan
(June 1946) The United States presents the Baruch plan for the international control of atomic weapons to the United Nations. 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
(January 10, 1946) The purpose of this assembly is to discuss subjects related to international peace and security. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and countries of eastern Europe created a cohesive bloc. There have always been sharp disagreements among members on several issues, such as those relating to the Cold War. -
Iron Cutain Speech
(March 5, 1946)This speech, delivered by Winston Churchill, refers to how Eastern Europe was being controlled by the Soviet Union. He had recently been defeated in his reelection bid, but still continued to warn the dangers of Communism. The term “Iron Curtain” expresses that those people living in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe were oppressed and lacked freedom. He regarded this term as horrific because it denied the people of Eastern Europe basic human liberties. -
Truman Doctrine
(March 12, 1947) The purpose of this was to counter geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was further developed when Harry S. Truman pledged to contain threats of Greece and Turkey. It established that the United States would assist all democratic nations under threat of authoritarian forces. -
Marshall Plan
(April 3, 1948) The Marshall Plan provided aid to the Western parts of Europe after World War II. The goal of this was to stop the spread of communism throughout Europe and reconstruct after the war. The Marshall plan decreased the power of communist parties in this area and hope that more would support the capitalist West. -
Berlin Air Lift
(June 24, 1948- May 12, 1949) when Germany lost World War 2, the country was divided up among four sections. The US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union each got a section. To gain Berlin all to themselves, Stalin cut off all canals, railroads, and Highways, completely cutting off Berlin. He believed by doing this it would cut off Berlin’s food supply forcing UK, France, and the US out but instead we supplied the sectors from the air for about a year, transporting over 2.3 million tons of cargo. -
United States Eastablished NATO
(April 4, 1949) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created by the United States, Belgium, Portugal, and several Western European countries to join an alliance, and provide security against the Soviet Union. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, West Germany in 1955, followed by Spain in 1982. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
(October 1, 1949) On this day, the Chinese Communist leader, Mao Zedong, announced the creation of the PRC (People’s Republic of China). The announcement ended the costly civil war between the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and the KMT (Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang), which broke out immediately following World War II and followed by an on and off the conflict between the two sides since the 1920s. -
Joesph McCarthy Speech
(February 9, 1950) At the time, Senator, McCarthy delivered the speech at a Lincoln Day dinner hosted by the Ohio County Republican Women’s Club at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia. In his speech, he attacked the Truman administration and accused over 200 Americans of being members of the Communist Party. -
Korean War
(June 25, 1950- July 27, 1953) A war between North and South Korea. The war broke out with the split of Korea, with the help of the United States states for the south, and China and the Soviet Union for the north. -
Warsaw Pact
(May 14, 1955- July 1, 1991) A treaty signed by the Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites that put the Soviets in control of the armies of the states. The treaty called upon the states to send armed forces to other states that were under attack by outside forces. It was a unified military pact which was under the command of Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. -
Sputnik Launched
(October 4, 1957) On the fourth of October, at exactly 7:28 PM, the Russians fired the first satellite into space. Sputnik was a 60 cm metal sphere into orbit some 560 miles up, and at the speed of 18,000 mph, it was completing one circuit every hour and 36 minutes. It weighed 184 pounds and carried a radio transmitter. History was changed forever. -
Fidel Castro Proclaims Communist Cuba
(January 1, 1959) In the Cuban revolution, leader, Fidel Castro and an associated group of revolutionaries toppled the ruling government of Fulgencio Batista, forcing him out of power. After Batista’s overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba’s prime minister. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis- a defining incident in the Cold War in 1962. -
MAD
(1960s) Established in the early 1960s, Mutually Assured Destruction is a national security policy in which a full use of nuclear weapons by both sides would ensure the complete destruction of both the attacker and defender. -
Nuclear Deterrent
(1960s) During the cold war, the United States and soviet union each built a stockpile of nuclear weapons. They both sat on the fact that a nuclear war could be fought on and won, but both refused to engage in doing so. Nuclear deterrence has been a central element of American security policy since the Cold War began. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
(April 17, 1961) was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA sponsored paramilitary group. It also earned itself the name of the “Perfect Failure” because of the United States failure to get rid of Fidel Castro, Cuba’s dictator who the United States did not like. -
Building of Berlin Wall Begins
(August 13, 1961) This wall was built by the communist government of East Berlin. Cold war tensions over Berlin were getting high. Constructed of the wall created a short crisis in the U.S-Soviet bloc relations. Thousands of people from East Berlin crossed over into West Berlin to be back with their families and escape communist repression. -
Berlin Wall
(August 13, 1961- November 9, 1991) The Berlin Wall consisted of 96 miles of barrier in between East and West of Germany, with concrete and barbed wire barriers separating the two sides. It is also referred to as the Iron Curtain. In 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech in which he referred to the Berlin Wall as the Iron Curtain because of the way that it separated the East and West sides of Germany, meaning that no one knew what was hiding behind the curtain. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
(October 16-28, 1962) Leaders of the U.S. and Soviet Union went through a 13-day political/military standoff over the installment of nuclear-armed missiles, placed by the Soviets, in Cuba. -
United States Sends Troops to Vietnam
(March 1965) President Johnson had gained support of Congress to send troops to Vietnam. These troops were meant to stop communism in the South, in which the U.S. government supported because he had prevented the communist victory in the south. The Vietnam war was considered to be a “proxy” war in the Cold War. Although the United States and the Soviet Union did not engage in a direct war, they supported different sides. Vietnamese rebels fought against the U.S. and southern Vietnam government. -
Non-Proliferation Agreement
(1968) This treaty (NPT), was an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. This was signed by the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 59 other states, and also known as the post-cold war world and nuclear weapons proliferation. With the end of the Cold war, great progress has been made towards this goal. -
Apollo 11
(July 16, 1969) On July 20th, two astronauts, Neil Armstrong, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin will be the first to land on the Moon. Six hours later, Neil Armstrong, would become not only the first American but the first person in history to step into the Lunar Surface. On July 16th, 1969, the two astronauts, including Michael Collins, blasted off in Apollo 11. Four days later would they land on the moon in the Lunar Module. -
Deng Xiaoping
(Late 1970’s until 1997) Deng Xiaoping became a communist leader who abandoned many communist doctrines and incorporated elements of the free enterprise system into the economy. A communist China, making up a quarter of the world’s population, had unstoppably extended the Cold war to east Asia. The PRC’s (People's Republic of China) foreign policy during the cold war had gone through several different stages. -
Kent State Shooting
(May 4, 1970) Also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State Massacre, where members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd protesting the Vietnam War; killing four students and injuring nine. After, a student-led strike led to the temporary shutdown of universities and colleges across the country. Amongst other things, some believe that this was one of the factors that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. -
SALT 1 Treaty Created
(May 27, 1972) This treaty was a five-year agreement between the U.S and the Soviet Union and was signed in 1972 that limited the nations numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles. Yet this treaty failed to abandoned to replace old missiles with new ones. -
Margaret Thatcher
(1975- 1990) Also known was Baroness Thatcher. She was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 as well as Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom, in office, she reduced trade unions and scaled back public benefits. -
Fall of Saigon
(April 30, 1975) After remaining Americans were evacuated helicopters and aircraft, the South Vietnamese President, General Duong Van Minh, surrendered Saigon in order to avoid bloodshed. He was President of the country to two days, standing by as it crumbled. On April 30th, the North Vietnamese Army took over Saigon and renamed it, Ho Chi Minh City in honor of their revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh. -
Pope John Paul II
(1978-2005) The Polish Pope John Paul II played an important role in the downfall of communism in central and eastern Europe in 1989. He always stood up for hope and freedom. Soviet Union relations were marked by long-standing persecution of the Catholic church by the soviet union and the Warsaw pact, criticized throughout the cold war. -
SALT 2 Treaty Created
(June 18, 1979) Signed by President Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev in Vienna on June 18th of 1979, the treaty set an overall limit of about 2,400 of any kind of weapons systems for each side. The treaty was submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification shortly after. -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
(December 25, 1979-February 15, 1989) The Soviet Afghanistan War was fought between Afghanistan rebels called the Mujahideen and the Soviet-supported Afghanistan government. The United States supported the Afghanistan rebels in order to try and overthrow the communist government and to prevent the spread of communism. -
Lech Walesa
(1990-1995) He helped form and led communist Poland’s first independent trade union, Solidarity. He went on to become the president of Poland, until the end of World War II. His victory was another sign of the soviet union's lessening power, and communism decreasing influence in eastern Europe. His election was another blow to the Soviet power in East Europe and marked another defection from the communist Iron Curtain nations of Europe. -
START 1 Treaty Created
(July 31, 1991) Also known as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it was a mutual treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the reductions and limitations of strategic offensive arms. It was signed on the date July 31st and taken into action, finally, on December 5th three years later in 1994. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
(November 9, 1991) The wall symbolized the lack of freedom under communism. This symbolized the cold war and divide between the communist Soviet block and the western democratic, capitalist bloc. Berlin was on the front line in the cold war struggle between the powers. -
START 2 Treaty Created
(January 3, 1993) Also known as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it was a mutual treaty between the United States of America and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by the United States President George H. W. and President Boris Yeltsin.
