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Yalta Conference
This was a major conference in which the US, the UK, and the USSR all met to discuss how they wanted to rebuild after the war. During this conference the US tried to get Russian support for invading Japan while the UK and the USSR tried to decide on what to do with Eastern Europe. -
VE Day
This is the day in which Nazi Germany accepted the Allies unconditional surrender. It was the official end to the war in Europe. -
Potsdam Conference
This conference was between the same nations that went to the Yalta conference. Here they discussed what to do with Germany now that the Germans surrendered. They decided that each country can pretty much do whatever they wanted with the part of Germany that they got. -
Atomic Bombs
At the end of the war the US gave Japan an ultimatum: have an unconditional surrender or face complete and utter destruction. When Japan didn’t answer the US dropped this bombs which were weapons unlike any other before. These two bombs ended up wiping out Nagasaki and Hiroshima in a matter of seconds and Japan’s surrender came soon afterwards. -
VJ Day
This was the day in which Japan accepted an unconditional surrender. This was the official end to World War 2. On the other hand the actual ceremony did not take place until September 2 on board the USS Missouri. -
Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill gave this speech in Fulton, Missouri. He talked about how the US and the UK needed to work together after WWII. Also he warned about how they should not take the appeasement tactic which they used with Germany. His quote from this speech was “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” -
Truman Doctrine announced
Truman announced that the US would provide aid to any nation trying to free itself from communism. This would lead the US into several different wars throughout the cold war. -
Molotov Plan
This was when the Soviets tried to combat the Marshall plan. The soviets made the same agreements made in the Marshall plan as long as the nation was communist. This plan was mostly used by Eastern European countries. -
Marshall Plan
This plan got the US to give aid to European countries aligned with the US. It was meant to help rebuild the war-torn Europe and get the nations to become more democratic and less communist. It ended up giving out around 13 billion dollars. -
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Berlin Blockade
This was an attempt by the Soviet Union to get the Western Powers to give up West Berlin by preventing them from getting to their portion of Berlin by land. The Western Powers response was to start the Berlin airlift in which they would fly supplies over by air non-stop. This continued for almost a year until the Soviets gave up since the attempt was not working. -
NATO created
This was a military alliance formed between the US, Canada, and several different European nations. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty organization and was meant as a collective security act against the Soviet Union. ALso there are currently 28 different nations in NATO with 12 of them being founding members. -
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Korean War
This was a war fought mainly by the US, China, and Korea. The communist North was trying to take over the democratic South which got the US involved. The UN quickly turned the war around and was about to defeat the North when China invaded. This pushed the UN back to the original borders where they agreed on a ceasefire. -
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Cuban Revolution
This was a revolution in Cuba against an American-backed government. The revolution was led by Fidel Castro and once it succeeded they claimed to be socialist in order to gain support from the Soviet Union. This would lead to many more problems later in the cold war, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. -
Warsaw Pact
This was a military alliance between the Soviet Union and seven satellite soviet states. It was meant to be a response to the creation of NATO and was signed less than two weeks after West Germany joined NATO (May 5). This pact ended roughly 6 months before the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. -
Sputnik
This was the first satellite ever put in to orbit and was done so by the Soviet Union. This caused a lot of fear from the Americans because they saw it as the Soviets were better than them and was a big step in the space race. -
U2 Incident
This was when a US spy plane was caught by the soviets and was shot down in their airspace. It became a big deal quickly because we were about to make peace and this turned the cold war back on since the Soviet Union didn’t think they could trust the US anymore. -
Bay of Pigs
This was a failed invasion attempt planned by the US. They tried to get a couple hundred exiles to overthrow Castro in Cuba. This ended up failing miserably because the US backed out at the last second and the exiles were not strong enough to fight Castro’s force by themselves. -
Berlin Wall
This was a wall built around West berlin by the Soviet Union. They did this in order to prevent citizens from running over to West Berlin in order to escape the Soviet rule. It stood for a long time preventing people trying to find refuge from an oppressive government until 1989. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
This was when Russia tried to put nukes in Cuba as a deterrent towards the US. The US caught on to what they were trying to do before the Soviets could get nukes to Cuba so the US made a naval quarantine of Cuba. This almost ended up in a nuclear war but was prevented when the Soviets turned around at the last second. -
Lunar Landing
This was when the Apollo 11 mission conducted by the US reached the moon. The mission’s goal was to get an astronaut on the moon, which was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. This was very important and pretty much ended the space race since the US finally beat Russia to a major accomplishment in space.
