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Russian Communist Revolutions
In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia ending centuries of imperial rule and setting in motion political and social changes that would form the Soviet Union. The first revolution overthrew the imperial government, the second placed the Bolsheviks in power. -
Treaty of Versailles
One of the signed peace treaties at the end of WW1. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers (Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States). It was signed 5 years after the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded in 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the first world war. It was the first international organization that wanted to maintain world peace. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference was held from February 4 to 11, 1945, and it was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. This meeting was to discuss the reorganization of Europe after the war. -
United Nations
After the failure of the league of nations, the United Nations were formed to create a collective security system for the second time. Due to the rigid structure of the UN that was intended to maintain the status quo of the international world order, the security council often found itself in a stalemate situation, unable to act efficiently. -
Nuremberg Trials
Between 1945 and 1949 a total of 13 trials took place. Those trials were held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war crimes to justice. The defendants, who were Nazi Party Officials and also high ranked Nazi military leaders, were indicted on charges such as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. -
Iron Curtain Speech
March 5, 1946, Nine months after Winston Churchill failed to be reelected as Britain's Prime Minister, Churchill traveled by train with President Harry S. Truman to make a speech. In this speech, Churchill gave the very descriptive phrase that surprised the United States and Britain, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." -
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. -
Baruch Plan
It was a proposal by the U.S government written by Bernard Baruch based on the Acheson Lilienthal Report United Nations Atomic Energy Commission during the first meeting in June 1946. The US agreed to turn over all of its weapons on the condition that all other countries pledge not to produce them. The Soviets rejected this plan on the grounds that the United Nations was dominated by the US and its allies in Western Europe, and could not be trusted to exercise authority over atomic weapons. -
Truman Doctrine
Was an American foreign policy to stop Soviet imperialism during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
MAD
Mutual assured destruction, or MAD, is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. -
Marshall Plan
An American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave 13 billion dollars to them in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of WW2. -
Berlin Airlift
This was one of the first major crisis that contributed to the cause of the cold war.The soviets blockaded the western allies by railway, canal and road.Western allies were in great need of Supplies and other necessities. Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the allies withdrew from west Berlin.In response to this request the American air force formed the Berlin airlift to get the proper supplies to western allies. Not long after this the Soviet lifted the blockade that was put on. -
NATO Created
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
On October 1,1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China. This ended the Civil War between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, which started immediately after WWII. The fall of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades. -
Joseph McCarthy Speech
In February of 1950, Joseph Mccarthy gave a speech warning the threat of communism within the United States. He gave specific names of people working within the state department and listed their crimes. Those men were then fired for their jobs, even though Mccarthy was never able to prove their guilt. -
Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War begun when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army crossed over the boundary between the Soviet backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the South. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Warsaw Pact
This was a collective defense treaty among the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. This pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. -
Sputnik Launched
History was made on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully sent the first artificial satellite into space. The satellite was as big as a beach ball but was able to orbit the Earth's elliptical path in about 98 minutes. This did cause fear in the american public though. With the soviets being able to launch satellites, this translated into the capability of being able to launch nuclear missiles from Europe to the U.S. -
Fidel Castro Proclaims Communist Cuba
Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolution against the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro established close relations with the Soviet Union, in return the Russians provided economic and military aid. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
This attack on Cuba was one of the biggest
Failures that the U.S. had upon invading.The reason this happened because of the missiles that were placed in Cuba facing the U.S. and when Cuba was asked they denied the fact. -
Building of the Berlin Wall
Throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, thousands of people from East Berlin crossed over into West Berlin to be with their families and escape communist repression. To stop the large outflow of people, the communist government of East Germany began to build the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. This wall came to be a major symbol of the Cold War. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In October of 1962, was the closest point in the Cold War where war would be declared. The Soviets set up nuclear missiles in Cuba, which is only 90 miles away from the U.S. coast. President J.F.K. set up a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the entering of nuclear missiles, and he also expressed that they were prepared to use military force if necessary. This conflict ended when the President agreed to not invade Cuba, and to remove the missiles from within Turkey. -
U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
In response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of 2 and 4, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, per the authority given to him by Congress in the subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, decided to escalate the Vietnam Conflict by sending U.S. ground troops to Vietnam. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed near Da Nang in South Vietnam; they are the first U.S. -
Non Proliferation Agreement
The Non Proliferation Agreement is a international treaty whose objective is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament. -
Apollo 11
On July 20, 1969, America set human history by putting the first men on the moon. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, were the first two people ever to set foot on mars. They spent about two and a half hours walking around on the moon collecting lunar material to return to Earth. The primary mission of Apollo 11 was to achieve a national goal set by JFK. -
Kent State Shooting
On May 4, 1970 some unarmed students at Kent State were protesting about the Cambodian Campaign that was announced by Richard Nixon on April 30, 1970. The Ohio National Guard responded to the protest by opening fire on the crowd. Four students were killed and wounded nine other students, one whom suffered permanent paralysis. Some of the students that were shot were either protesting the campaign, or walking nearby or watching the protest from a distance. -
SALT
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union, the two Cold War superpowers, on the issue of armament control. -
The Fall of Saigon
On April 30, 1975 The People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam captured the Capital City of South Vietnam, Saigon. -
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping, was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman. He was the paramount leader of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989. After Mao Zedong's death, Deng led his country through far-reaching market-economy reforms. -
Pope John Paul II
Recognized as helping to end Communist Rule in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion. He upheld the Church's teachings on such matters as artificial contraception and the Ordination of women but also supported the church’s Second Vatican Council and its reforms. -
Margaret Thatcher
She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is currently the only woman to have held the office. She was known as the Iron Lady. She was prime minister. -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and immediately gained complete military and political control of Kabul and the other large portions of the country. This event begun a decade long, brutal attempt by the Soviet Union to subdue the Afghan civil war and maintain a friendly and socialist government on its border. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The wall came down on November 9, 1989 when the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe. The spokesman for East Berlin’s communist party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West. -
Lech Walesa
During his presidency, Wałęsa saw Poland through privatization and transition to a free-market economy. -
START
START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 December 1994.
