Cold War

  • Yalta Conference Begin

    Conference between Great Britain, USA, USSR to discuss the result of Europe's postwar reorganization
  • Yalta Conference End

    Conference between Great Britain, USA, USSR to discuss the result of Europe's postwar reorganization
  • Soviet Satellites in Eastern Europe lead to the Iron Curtain

    Iron Curtain Separation between East and West Germany. Iron means: not easy to get through, a sense of permanency. Term coined by Winston Churchill.
  • Truman Doctrine/Containment

    The Truman Doctrine of containment was a United States policy to stop Soviet expansion during the Cold War, President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology
  • Marshall Plan

    US policy of providing economic aid to help European nations recover from WWII. Was an additional step to preventing the spread of communism. Soviet refuse to participate and prohibit the countries it had control over from joining; was an American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave $17 billion in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II.
  • Arab/Israeli conflict

    A conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs in the Middle East. The United Nations established Israel, a nation under control of Jews, in Palestine in the late 1940s, in territory inhabited by Palestinian Arabs.
  • Berlin Airlift Start

    Successful effort by the United States and Britain to ship by air 2.3 million tons of supplies to the residents of the Western-controlled sectors of Berlin from June 1948 to May 1949, in response to a Soviet blockade of all land and canal routes to the divided city
  • Creation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization

    military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. With headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, the organization establishes a system of collective security whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
  • Berlin Airlift End

    Successful effort by the United States and Britain to ship by air 2.3 million tons of supplies to the residents of the Western-controlled sectors of Berlin from June 1948 to May 1949, in response to a Soviet blockade of all land and canal routes to the divided city.
  • Mao Zedong’s Communist red army takeover of china

    Mao’s forces were victorious in 1949 and drove the Nationalist government onto the island of Taiwan. Mao announced the victory of communism in China and vowed to establish the constitutional and governmental framework to protect the “people’s revolution.
  • Korean War Start

    conflict between Communist and nonCommunist forces in Korea
  • Development and testing of hydrogen bomb by United States

    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.
  • Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro begin

    Fidel Castro Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008 Fidel Castro Born to a middle class family, Fidel Castro study law, established the first, and still standing, communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro's regime was successful in reducing illiteracy, stamping out racism and improving public health c
  • Korean War End

    conflict between Communist and nonCommunist forces in Korea
  • Warsaw Pact

    An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations. This was in response to the NATO
  • Vietnam War

    the Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
  • Development and testing of Soviet H-Bomb

    On November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union exploded its first true hydrogen bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site. It had a yield of 1.6 megatons.
  • Launching of sputnik satellite by soviet Union

    the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball ,weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.
  • U-2 spy plane manned by Francis Gary Powers shot down by Soviet Union

    U-2 incident The incident when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denied the true purpose of the plane at first, but was forced to when the U.S.S.R. produced the living pilot and the largely intact plane to validate their claim of being spied on aerially. The incident worsened East-West relations during the Cold War and was a great embarrassment for the United States.
  • Bay of Pigs

    The Bay of Pigs was an American attempt to overthrow the newly established communist government in Cuba by training and sending Cuban rebels. The coup ended up in a disaster due to the lack of support by the Americans. The incident was an embarrassment for the U.S. and ultimately led to Castro pleading for Soviet aid (Cuban Missile Crisis)
  • Berlin Wall created

    The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis Start

    A period in 1962 in which the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba to scare the United States.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis End

    A period in 1962 in which the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba to scare the United States.
  • Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia

    Soviets invade Czechoslovakia to halt "Prague Spring" under their policy of the Brezhnev Doctrine. The US doesn't do anything to prevent the invasion because Czechoslovakia is under the "Iron Curtain".
  • Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) lead to SALT treaty

    SALT I Treaty signed in 1972 between the U.S. and the USSR. This agreement limited the number of missiles in each nation and led to the SALT II discussions and a slowdown of the arms race between the two countries.
  • Richard Nixon’s Detente Policy

    Policy would STOP trying to eliminate communism and win the Cold War, but rather replace it through new initiatives directed toward finding areas of cooperation; Nixon parted with the philosophy of containment, and thought that negotiations and peaceful competition would lead to strengthening of democracies; Détente; Nixon Doctrine.
  • Vietnam War

    the Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
  • Berlin Wall Destroyed

    The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin.