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Yalta Conference
SourceThe Yalta Cnference was where the three leaders; Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, agreed that the Soviet Union would enter war against Japan within three month's after the German surrender. This was held due to the success victory over the Axis Powers in Europe. The result of this, however, was the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Declaration
SourceThis was where the supreme commanders of the Western Powers met their Soviet colleagues for the first time. This declaration was signed to proclaim Germany's surrender and capture the capital of the German Reich. This was the day where the allies officially takes over Germany due to the German loss from the war. Therefore, Germans, or in general the country Germany is in total hands of the Allies and is to serve for the Allies from that day on. -
Potsdam Conference
SourceThe leaders of the big three nations; Soviet Union, United States, and Britain, met at Potsdam Germany on this day to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. This was basically the continuation of the Yalta Conference about how to build and fix Germany as a nation again, but in the Allied way. Here they found that the three nation's had different views and plans for Germany; yet, they still remained allies. -
North Vietnam
SourceSeptember 2 of 1945 was the day Vietnam became independent from France. This era was under Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh. He organized a guerrilla organization to gain his longing goal - for Vietnam to be an independent country. When the Americans aided the French against Minh's soldiers, they entered from the South of Vietnam; thus, the lost against the forces of North Vietnam. As a consequence, the South and the North was reunited under the communist rule. -
Iron Curtain Speech
SourceChurchill made a speech in Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri was mostly about the later relationship of the allies. Here he praised the United States and said that Britain and the United States are the great powers and basically be the ones who should control and reconstruct Germany. Even so, he mentioned some negative things about the Soviet Union which made this speech so important because this drawed the battle lines of the Cold War. -
Containment Policy
SourceThe Truman Doctrine was a containment policy by the United States President, Harry S. Truman. This was an action to limit communism to the areas already under Soviet control. This policy produced the Marshall Plan - the action where the America sent military and economic aid and advisors to Greece and Turkey so that they could withstand the communist threat. -
Marshall Plan
SourceThis was a Western Democracy move to strengthen democratic governments in Europe. Under this the United States supplied food, supplies, economic assictance, and full out aid to help rebuild Germany. This attracted Germans to the democracy side which pissed the communists in the East side. -
Berlin Blockade
SourceThe Berlin Blockade was the attempt of the communists to limit the British, French, and Americans from traveling to and from their side (Eastern) of Berlin. They did this to avoid the Allied democracy to spread on the whole Eastern Germany. Stalin tried to for Western Allies out of West Berlin by making the Berlin wall, closing railroads and highways, etc. This time Berlin was already divided into two sectors; East and West. -
Berlin Airlift
SourceCargo planes from the Western powers supplied West Berliners with food and fuel - this was done by the United States for more than a year to resist the Eastern blockade. Hence, the blockade ended, the West won, but crisis got worse - Cold War got worse. -
NATO
SourceAs tensions grow between the United States and the Soviet Union, on this day the United States and eleven ther countries formed a military alliance called the National Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Members who represented each country in the organization pledged to help each other when one of them gets attacked; the main point of NATO. The Soviet Union responded with making their own alliance. -
Korean War - American Involvement
SourceWhen North Korea invaded South Korea, the United States came to aid the South Koreans which convinced the United Nations to send them troops as well. As the South continued to fight the North, they got pushed further to China! Then the commander of the United Nations, General Douglas MacArthur made U.S. President Truman decide not to invade China for the good when Chine tried to push back the North Koreans back to their country. -
Eisenhower Presidency
SourceDwight D. Eisenhower became the President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during the World War 2. During his Presidency, he managed the Cold War era tensions with the Soviet Union under the looming threat of nuclear weapons, ended the war in Korea, and authorized a lot of covert anti-communist operations by the CIA around the world. Simply, he made America a great outside, but inside (domestic) he failed to protect Civil Rights. -
Nikita Khrushchev
SourceStalin's death caused Nikita Khrushchev's emersion in the world. After Stalin's death, his successor Nikita took place as the New Soviet leader. He maintained the communist control in the country even though he denounced Stalin's abuse of power - which totally shocked everyone in the Soviet Union. He called for a 'peaceful coexistence' with the West. Even so, he died in the year of 1982, then a new leader rose. -
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
SourceCouple, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested and then executed on this day. They were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union which they tried to deny. United States President Eisenhower said that this could've made the atomic war worse due to their strong anti-communist people. -
Cuban Revolution
SourceThe Cuban Revolution was basically Fidel Castro's Revolution. It was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Castro won and Cuba replaced Batista's regime with Castro's revolutionary government. The outcome was Cuba became a Communist nation; no freedom of speech. -
Warsaw Pact
SourceThe Warsaw Pact was the alliance made by the Sviet Union in respond to the Western Democracies' NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). This was, similarly to NATO, for the country to have back-ups / alliances, but this one's made of seven satellites in the Eastern Europe. They restore to keep themselves in order and they cemented the division in eastern and western blocs of Europe. Poland and Czechoslovakia were examples of the Eastern blocs. -
Sputnik
SourceThe spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time by the Soviet Union. This era was the 'Space Age' or 'Space Race'. Sputnik was the world's first artificial satellite. It was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year to study Earth and the solar system. This scared many Americans of their opponent's use of more 'sinister' technologies - which caused the establishment of the 'space race' / 'space age'. -
U2 Accident
SourceCIA pilot Francis Gary Powers went on a secret misson: to over fly and photograph denied territory from his U2 spy plane deep inside Russia. President Eisenhower was anxious about a surprise nuclear attack and nervous about rapid the technological achievements of the Soviet Union therefore this was granted. Khrushchev wrecked the U2 plane and captured the pilot, Powers. -
Kennedy Presidency
SourceJohn F. Kennedy became America's President from 1961 to 1963. He contended to ban the Treaty of 1963 and showed significant progress toward his goal of "a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion." Americans saw the beginning of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world. His reign was mostly focused on (which he prioritized) income tax cuts and a civil rights bill. -
First Man in Space
SourceThe U.S. and the Soviet Union vigorously competed to push the boundaries of mankind's exploration of space. So at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the Vostok 1,a small craft blasted off from the Soviets' launch site carrying Yuri Gagarin. It only traveled around the Earth once, reaching a maximum height of 203 miles (327 kilometers); the 108-minute flight gave him a permanent place in the history books as the first man in space. Gagarin continued to make test flights for the Air Force until 1968, he died -
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
SourceThe U.S. attacked the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft. This was done by the American President JFK to overthrow Castro's government. As a result, American plan failed; Cuban military sanked U.S. supply ships, 100 attackers were killed, and more than 1,100 Americans were captured by Castro's military. -
Berlin Wall
SourceCommunist government built this concrete wall with barbed wires which divided East and West Berlin (Berlin is Germany's capital). This was made to reduce / prevent migration from East Germany to West Germany. People have been 'living / treated well' in the West; hence, the Eastern Germans wanted to move there because they were unhappy with communism. Then crowds swarmed the wall and tried lots of ways just to cross the wall in spite of the armed guards patrolling it. -
JFK's Assasination
SourceThis day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assasinated in an open-top convertible during a motorcade with her wife Jacqueline Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot JFK in the head, was a pro-Castro organization. Oswald was arrested and was soon shot and killed by Jack Ruby. Many American politicians then turned against their country and became less confident as before. Also, Lyndon B. Johnson rose up to be the next U.S. President. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
SourceU.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked by North Vietnamese; thus, Johnson sent U.S. planes against the attackers and asked Congress to pass a resolution to support his actions. The resolution was “to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia” which was passed on Augaust 7. Consequently, the resolution became the legal basis for their (President Johnson and Richard Nixon) military policies in Vietnam. -
Vietnam War
SourceAfter the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was approved, the U.S. began bombing targets in North Vietnam. American foreign policy planners saw the situation in Vietnam as part of the global Cold War, so they developed the domino theory - the view that a communist victory in South Vietnam would cause noncommunism governments across Southest Asia to fall to communism, like dominoes - U.S. wants to prevent this. South Vietnam fought with the U.S. against North Vetnam; yet, lost the war due to withdrawal. -
Prague Spring
SourceAlexander Dubcek introduced a series of far-reaching political and economic reforms, including increased freedom of speech and the rehabilitation of political dissidents. Dubcek’s effort to establish “communism with a human face” was soon known as the Prague Spring. The Prague Spring ended with a Soviet invasion, the removal of Alexander Dubcek as party leader and an end to reform within Czechoslovakia. -
Tet Offensive
Source70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive. It was a coordinated series of brutal attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam - under General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). They planned the offensive in an attempt both to cause a rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. Communists won and the U.S. soon withdrawed after this. -
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
SourceThis was an agreement signed by several of the major nuclear and non-nuclear powers that pledged their cooperation in stemming the spread of nuclear technology in Moscow, Russia. It may not prevented nuclear production fully, but it was a major success for advocates of arms control - because it set a precedent for international cooperation between nuclear and non-nuclear states to prevent making more of the weapons. -
Nixon Presidency
SourceRichard M. Nixon became the new U.S. President in 1969. He won his party's nomination in 1968 and went on to defeat Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace. He improved international relations with the Soviet Union and China. During his administration, American astronauts made the first moon landing; Apollo 11. -
Apollo 11
SourceApollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon; Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. This was a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961. They landed on the moon at July 20, 1969; 10:56 p.m. ET. This was caused by the 'moon race' occuring between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This made the Soviets feel defeated and at the same time motivated and challenged to improve their space program / aviation. -
SALT I
SourceThe U.S. and the Soviet Union began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) to control the use of ABMs (Anti-Ballistic Missiles) defensive systems and strategic nuclear offensive systems. SALT I is considered the crowning achievement of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of détente. The negotiations led to SALT II in 1972 which really focused on limiting and reducing military uses and preventing both sides from making qualitative breakthroughs that would again cause a strategic relationship. -
Nixon Visits China
SourcePresident Richard Nixon came to the nation of China to re-establish diplomatic relations with communist China. It was so dramatic and historic that it surprised a few countries about it. One of the reasons he visited China was for the United States to be able to make use of the Chinese as a counterweight to North Vietnam. Thus, this relation drew China distantly with its communists allies. -
Détente
SourceDétente was the time of relaxation of tensions during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was used by Americans to restrain the Soviet Union throught diplomatic agreements rather than by military means. Though, it ended in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded the Afghanistan. Building of nuclear munitions may have stopped or slowed down between nations, but threats kept on coming. -
Paris Peace Accords
SourceThe U.S., North and South Vietnam, and Viet Cong formally signed an agreement ending war and restoring peace in Vietnam - which was held in Paris, France. It included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam and the U.S. agreeing to the withdrawal of all U.S. troops and advisors and the dismantling of all U.S. bases. In return, the North Vietnamese agreed to release all U.S. and other prisoners of war. This was a huge deal to the world too due to the fact of the egregious Vietnam war. -
Chilean coup d’état
SourceSalvador Allende Gossens was the Chilean Socialist President in Cuba in 1970. However, U.S. President Nixon didn't like him and wanted him out of power and the only way to remove him was to have the Chilean military rising up against him. Then, Chilean people (including their congress and Judiciary) started to go against Allende; the Chilean military coup invaded his palace but he shot himself with a gun given to him by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte replaced him. -
Yom Kippur War
SourceEgyptian and Syrian forces launched a coordinated attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, to win back territory lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967. The United States formed an alliance with Israel; therefore, with all the ammunitons and aid from America - Israel was well mobilized. They succeded - Israel’s victory costed heavy casualties. In April 1974, the nation’s prime minister, Golda Meir (1898-1978), stepped down. -
SALT II
SourceAlthough the negotiations for this began in November 1972, it was signed on this day. Its objective was to provide for equal numbers of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles for the sides, to begin the process of reduction of these delivery vehicles, and to impose restraints on qualitatative developments which could threaten future stability. But later, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union violated political commitments for this treaty. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
SourceChinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. This protest was mostly made of young Chinese students against the Chinese Communist Party leaders; demanded for democracy in their country. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
SourceOn November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government was asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes into force. Thousands of Eastern Berliners started cross the border until they fully demanded to open the border, then it was brought down by the vigorous Berliners. That moment, the Berlin wall was brought into an end and both sides of Berlin finally met again. Therefore, the West had to help and absorb the Eastern economic problems. -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
SourceThis day the Soviet flag (hammer and sickle flag) got lowered in Kremlin, Moscow for the last time due to the Soviet Union's fall. The causes of its fall were the demands of a lot of Soviet Republics to become independent countries, and the radical reforms that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented. The Bush administration's goals would provide economic and political stability and security for Russia, the Baltics, and the former Soviet Union.
