Cold War Developments By zoliboros Feb 4, 1945 Yalta Conference Cold War begins Period: Feb 4, 1945 to Aug 29, 1991 The End of the Soviet Union - The Cold War ends Aug 6, 1945 United States first used the Atomic bomb Aug 14, 1945 Japanese surrender - The end of World War II Mar 10, 1946 Winston Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" speech Jun 29, 1947 The Marshall Plan is announced Feb 8, 1948 Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia Jun 24, 1948 Berlin blockade begins Sep 13, 1949 Mao Zedong, a communist dictator takes control in China Sep 16, 1949 Soviets explode first atomic bomb Feb 28, 1950 Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt Jun 13, 1950 Korean War begins Nov 25, 1950 John F. Kennedy elected as president of the USA Jul 22, 1953 End of the Korean War Jun 27, 1954 CIA helps to overthrow unfriendly governments in Iran and Guatemala Jul 8, 1954 Vietnam split at 17th parallel May 18, 1955 Warsaw Pact formed Oct 23, 1956 Soviet forces invade Budapest to put down anti communist rebellion Oct 28, 1956 Suez Canal conflict - Egypt claims ownership Oct 4, 1957 Sputnik launched into orbit Nov 18, 1958 Khrushchev demands withdrawl of troops from Berlin Jan 29, 1959 Cuba taken over by communist leader Fidel Castro Sep 8, 1959 Khrushchev visits the USA Apr 3, 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba Aug 13, 1961 The border between East and West Berlin closed Aug 17, 1961 Construction of the Berlin Wall begins Nov 18, 1963 President Kennedy assasinated in Dallas Jul 27, 1965 Announcement of dispatching of 150,000 troops to Vietnam Aug 24, 1968 Soviet troops crush Czechoslovakian revolt Jul 20, 1969 Apollo 11 lands on the Moon Apr 13, 1970 President Nixon extends Vietnam war to Cambodia Jul 15, 1972 SALT I Agreement signed Jan 28, 1973 End of the Vietnam War Oct 23, 1973 Egypt and Syria attack Israel Aug 8, 1974 President Nixon resigns Jul 28, 1979 SALT II Agreeement signed Nov 29, 1979 Shah of Iran overthrown Feb 2, 1983 President Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative Aug 12, 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev ascends to power in the Soviet Union Oct 14, 1986 Reagan and Gorbachev remove all intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe Jan 2, 1989 Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan Sep 10, 1989 Hungary and Poland become independent Nov 5, 1989 The Fall of the Berlin Wall Dec 23, 1989 Communist regimes fall in Romania, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria Oct 3, 1990 Germany reunited Apr 10, 1991 Warsaw Pact ends