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The Berlin blockade
It was the closure of the borders that the United Kingdom and the United States shared with the Soviet Union in occupied German territory -
Mao declared China a communist country
China was clearly allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War but both saw things very differently. China practiced a more rural communist view, believing that the peasants were the future of communism, whereas, the Soviet Union practiced more urban and industrialized view of communism. -
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Confrontation
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Division of Korea into two parts
North Korea went communist under the Soviet Union's regime, and South Korea democratic, with the United States as a leader. They are still nowadays divided into these parts -
Cuban Missile Crisis
he Soviet Union decided to move nuclear weapons into Cuba off the coast of Florida. And the US responded by issuing a public announcement, stating that this is what had occurred and creating a Naval quarantine, blockade, around Cuba, so as to stop any forward movement. The Soviet Union responded, in kind, by trying to break the blockade-- push through the blockade. And the US fired shots across their bow. So it, in fact, did not hit the Soviet Union directly. -
Vietnam war
Vietnam was divided-- north communist, south noncommunist. The North Vietnamese moved the army, and consolidate the entire Vietnamese country. They gained a lot against the south because there was a non-state group in the south called the Viet Cong. And whereas the US went to Vietnam to fight the North Vietnamese Army. The Viet Cong, used surprise tactics, they would be dressed as civilians, and when the US army would come into villages they would surprise them and attack. -
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Dentente
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The US army pulled out of Vietnam
The US signed an armistice with the North Vietnamese and pulled out of Vietnam. And pretty soon the North Vietnamese then launched an attack against the South Vietnamese and took over the entire country. And Vietnam was considered a communist country. -
China and Soviet Union real split
Mao wanted to see China as the great communist power, not the Second Great communist power. And so you start to see that Mao starts bad mouthing the Soviet leadership throughout the 1950s and '60s till the 1970s, when the real split takes place. -
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Rapprochment
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The Soviet Union face economic problems
The Soviet Union had been spending so much money on armaments and not on building an economy, that it was starting to see major economic problems occurring -
President Reagan talks to American citizens
President Reagan said: "I am going to create the world's most sophisticated defense system, so that no nuclear attack from the Soviet Union can ever be possible to the United States" -
Fall of Berlin wall
just ordinary people started coming from western Berlin and eastern Berlin, started knocking down the walls and then climbing over the walls, and reuniting with cousins and family members that they hadn't seen in decades, because they had not been allowed to cross the walls. And the Soviet Union let it happen. -
Formal dissolution of the Soviet Union