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Potsdam Conference
From July 17 to August 2, 1945 the Big Three Soviet leader Joseph Stalin British Prime Minister Winston Churchill replaced in July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee and United States President Harry Truman met in Potsdam and Germany and to discuss terms for the end of World War II. -
Atomic bomb
atomic bomb, also called atom bomb, weapon with great explosive power that results from the sudden release of energy upon the splitting, or fission, of the nuclei of a heavy element such as plutonium or uranium. -
Long Telegram
In February 1946, George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famed "Long Telegram," which predicted the Soviets would only respond to force and that the best way to handle them would be through a long-term strategy of containment, that is, by stopping their geographical expansion. -
Iron Curtain Speech
March 5, 1946, in which he stressed the necessity for the United States and Britain to act as the guardians of peace and stability against the menace of Soviet communism, which had lowered an iron curtain -
Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. -
Hollywood 10
Hollywood Ten, motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who refused to answer questions before the House American Activities Committee -
Berlin Blockade
an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of the United States, Great Britain and France to travel to their sectors of Berlin -
NATO
NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was formed in 1949 to provide collective security against the threat posed by the Soviet Union. -
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. -
First Soviet bomb test
RDS-6, the first Soviet test of a hydrogen bomb, took place on August 12, 1953, and was nicknamed Joe 4 by the Americans. It used a layer-cake design of fission and fusion fuels -
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, on 1 October 1949. -
Rosenberg trial
In 1951, Julius and his wife Ethel were tried and convicted of espionage for providing the Soviet Union with classified information They were executed in 1953 -
Korean War & Korean Armistice
The signed Armistice established a "complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed force" that was to be enforced by the commanders of both sides. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the decisive engagement in the First Indochina War 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 (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact was a treaty that established a mutual-defense organization. It was composed originally of the Soviet Union and Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. -
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 U-2 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 in 1960 and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a 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. -
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall, German Berliner Mauer, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 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. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam -
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
On August 28, 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
Nixon's plan worked and in early January 1973, the Americans and North Vietnamese ironed out the last details of the settlement. 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. -
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 -
Reagan elected
Ronald Reagan, originally an American actor and politician, became the 40th ... In 1966 he was elected Governor of California by a margin of a million votes -
SDI announced
On March 23, 1983, Reagan announced SDI in a nationally televised speech, stating "I call upon the scientific community in this country, those 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
Reagan's stark challenge to tear down the Berlin Wall gave shape to increasing international pressure on Moscow to make good on its promises of openness and reform. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989 was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and the start of the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. -
Alger Hiss case
In the conclusion to one of the most spectacular trials in U.S. history, former State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.