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China Explodes Atomic Bomb
China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb. The Chinese people had finally developed their own nuclear technology. On the same day, the Chinese government made a solemn promise to the world that it developed nuclear weapons only for the purpose of self-defense and safeguarding national security. -
Period: to
The Cold War
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Berlin Blockade
The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
NATO Formed
The prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
China Goes Red
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). -
Korean War Begins
The Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, 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. -
US Tests First H-Bomb
The United States detonates the world's first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States a short-lived advantage in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. -
Dwight Eisenhower is Elected
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson, ending a string of Democratic Party wins that stretched back to 1932. -
Nikita Khrushchev replaces Joseph Stalin
The Soviet government announces that Nikita Khrushchev has been selected as one of five men named to the new office of Secretariat of the Communist Party after the death of Stalin -
Sputnik Launched
The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite -
President Kennedy Elected
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon -
Russians Send The First Man Into Space
On 12 April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space when he launched into orbit on the Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft (Vostok 1) -
Bay of Pigs invasion fails
1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war -
John F Kennedy Assassinated
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. -
The Beatles arrive in the US
John, Paul, George and Ringo arrived for their first U.S. visit with little idea what lay in store for them. The Beatles, from left to right, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, make a windswept arrival at JFK airport in New York City on Feb. 7, 1964. -
Nirst NFL Football Super Bowl
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to Supreme Court
Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer, serving as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice. -
Tet Offensive
North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam -
Martin Luther King Jr. is Assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. -
Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
In 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam -
American Astronauts land on the moon
The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969 -
Woodstock Concert
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock— was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. -
Watergate Burgaleries
Five men were discovered inside the DNC office and arrested. They were Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. -
Paris Peace Accords end the Vietnam War
The Paris Peace Accords, officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War -
President Nixon Resigns
Nixon resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages -
Soviet Union Invades Afghanistan
In the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet 40th Army invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan against a growing insurgency. The Soviet Union feared the loss of its communist proxy in Afghanistan -
President Reagan is Shot
President Ronald Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. -
Mikhael Gorbachev assumes control of the soviet union
The shredding of the Iron Curtain. The end of the Cold War. When Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the reins of power in the Soviet Union in 1985, no one predicted the revolution he would bring. A dedicated reformer, Gorbachev introduced the policies of glasnost and perestroika to the USSR. -
Chernobyl Accident
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident. It occurred on 25–26 April 1986 in the No.4 light water graphite moderated reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.
