-
Joseph Stalin
Soviet Leader 1929-53 -
Franklin Roosevelt
President 1933-45. Died in office -
Forming UN
26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington and signed the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter. Pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreed not to make a separate peace -
Postsdam
The last conference of the World War II meetings held by President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The talks established a Council of Foreign Ministers and a central Allied Control Council for administration of Germany. The leaders arrived at various agreements on the German economy, punishment for war criminals, land boundaries and reparations. -
Harry S. Truman
President 1945-53 -
Yalta Conference
2nd wartime meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The three leaders agreed to demand Germany's unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world -
Iron Curtain speech
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. -
Containment Policy
United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. The policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. -
Truman Doctine
An American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Berlin Blockade Begins
The first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
Marshall Plan
An American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion (nearly $140 billion in current dollar value as of September 2017) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
NATO forms
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European states based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. Its main purpose was to defend each other from the possibility of communist Soviet Union taking control of their nation. -
Berlin Blockade ends
The western powers instituted an airlift that lasted nearly a year and delivered much-needed supplies and relief to West Berlin. Coming just three years after the end of World War II, the blockade was the first major clash of the Cold War and foreshadowed future conflict over the city of Berlin. -
Soviets explode 1st atomic bomb
The bomb was code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. The atomic explosion destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals. -
Start of Korean War
A war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
John F. Kennedy
President 1951-63. Assassinated in Dallas,Texas -
Rosenberg's executed
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
President 1953-61 -
Warshaw Pact
A collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. -
Sputnik launched
The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
Nikita Khrushchev
Soviet Leader 1958-64 -
Fidel Castro takes over Cuba
He established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades. -
U-2 Incident
The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
An abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), or Playa Girón (Girón Beach) to Cubans, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. -
Construction of the berlin wall begins
Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s, thousands of people from East Berlin crossed over into West Berlin to reunite with families and escape communist repression. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. -
Lyndon Johnson
President 1963-69. Becomes president due to the assassination of JFK. -
Leonid Brezhnev
Soviet Leader 1964-82 -
U.S. Troops and Vietnam
In March 1965, Johnson made the decision, with solid support from the American public, to send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam. By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for 175,000 more by the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army. -
Richard Nixon
President 1969-74. Resigns due to watergate -
Apollo 11 lands on the moon
Lunar Landing Mission. Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. The first steps by humans on another planetary body were taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. -
Salt I signed
Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon, meeting in Moscow, sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements. At the time, these agreements were the most far-reaching attempts to control nuclear weapons ever. -
U.S. Troops out of Vietnam
The US part of the agreement was that it would pull its troops out of Vietnam and dismantle its bases. The US and the North agreed to an exchange of prisoners. According to the agreement, the US could replace arms on a one-to-one basis that had been supplied to the Saigon regime. -
Gerald Ford
President 1974-77. Becomes president due to resignation. -
Jimmy Carter
President 1977-1981 -
Salt II signed
President Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna. The agreement set a ceiling on long-range bombers and missiles and limited development to only one new land-base missile system for the duration of the treaty. -
Iran Hostage Crisis
A diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days. -
Ronald Reagan
President 1981-89 -
Reagan begins his Strategic Defense Initiative
A program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
Mikhail Gorbachev
Soviet Leader 1985-91 -
Iran-Contra Affair
Arms sold to Iran, profits used to support contras in Nicaragua -
Gorbachev ends economic aid to Soviet satellites
-
Reagan and Gorbachev resolve
To remove all intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe. -
Reagan and Gorbachev agree
To remove all medium and short-range nuclear missiles by signing treaty -
Soviet Troops withdraw from Afghanistan
-
China & Poland
China puts down protests for democracy. Poland becomes independent -
Soviet
Communist governments fall in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania; Soviet empire ends -
Berlin Wall falls
-
Germany reunited
-
Warshaw Pact ends
-
End of Soviet Union. Cold War ends