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Potsdam Conference
conference at the end of the war in europe between the u.s., russia, and uk. discussion of post-war germany. stalin promises free elections in eastern europe. -
Atomic Bomb - Hiroshima/Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th. -
The Long Telegram
George Kennan's "The Long Telegram" gave rise to the policy of containment - keeping communism within its present territory through the use of diplomatic, economic, and military actions. The telegram was in 1946. -
Hollywood 10
Hollywood Ten, 10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House UN-American Activities Committee in October 1947, refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations. They were cited for contempt of Congress. -
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations allegedly threatened by Soviet communism. Its an American foreign policy that originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. On March 12, 1947 President Harry S. Truman presented the Truman Doctrine. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan is an ambitious effort to stimulate economic growth in a despondent and nearly bankrupt post - World War II. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. The Molotov Plan was symbolic of the Soviet Union's refusal to accept aid from the Marshall Plan. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution, known in mainland China as the War of Liberation, was the conflict, led by the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Mao Zedong, that resulted in the proclamation of the People's Republic of China -
Berlin Airlift
In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city -
Berlin Blockade
The Soviets cut about 2.5 million civilians in the three western sectors of Berlin off from access to electricity, as well as food, coal, and other necessities. -
NATO
The main purpose of NATO is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means -
First Soviet Bomb Test
The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test, code named "RDS-1". At the Semipalatinsk test skte modern-day Kazakhanstan -
Alger Hiss case
State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. -
Korean War
The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. Afraid that the US was interested in taking North Korea as a base for operations against Manchuria, the People's Republic of China secretly sent an army across the Yalu River. -
Rosenberg trial
A court case involving Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, an American couple who were executed in 1953 as spies for the Soviet Union. The Rosenberg's were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. -
Korean Armistice
The Korean Armistice Agreement formally ended the war in Korea. North and South Korea remain separate and occupy almost the same territory they had when the war began. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the decisive engagement in the First Indochina War (1946–54). It consisted of a struggle between French and Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist and nationalist) forces for control of a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations, to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 and represented a Soviet counterweight to NATO, composed of the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (or Hungarian Uprising of 1956) was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the Communist government of Hungary and its Soviet imposed policies, lasting from October 23 until November 10, 1956 -
U2 Incident
The U2 Incident was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin wall separated East Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing East Berlin. In many ways it was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that separated the democratic western countries and the communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train and arm a force of Cuban exiles for an armed attack on Cuba. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Assassination of JFK
Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot from a nearby building by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack -
Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech argued that strong American-British relations were essential to stopping the spread of communism and maintaining peace in Europe. The speech was delivered by Winston Churchill in 1964. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War -
1968 riots at Democratic convention
During the evening of August 28, 1968, with the police riot in full swing on Michigan Avenue in front of the Democratic party's convention headquarters, the Conrad Hilton hotel, television networks broadcast live as the anti-war protesters began the now-iconic chant "The whole world is watching". -
Kent State
In May 1970, students protesting the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces, clashed with Ohio National Guardsmen on the Kent State University campus. When the Guardsmen shot and killed four students on May 4, the Kent State Shootings became the focal point of a nation deeply divided by the Vietnam War. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
All parties to the conflict, including South Vietnam, signed the final agreement in Paris on January 27. As it turned out, only America honored the cease-fire. A little over 2 years later, 30 North Vietnamese divisions conquered the South and restored peace in Vietnam. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese, was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong on 30 April 1975. -
Reagan elected
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1980. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory. -
SDI announced
When Reagan first announced SDI on March 23, 1983, he called upon the U.S. scientists who “gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” -
‘Tear down this wall’ speech
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall", also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, was a speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987. Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had separated West and East Berlin since 1961 -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
It was on 9 November 1989, five days after half a million people gathered in East Berlin in a mass protest, that the Berlin Wall dividing communist East Germany from West Germany crumbled. East German leaders had tried to calm mounting protests by loosening the borders, making travel easier for East Germans.