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The Truman doctrine is established
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledges American support for democracies against authoritarian threats. The doctrine originated with the primary goal of countering the growth of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Moscow. Historians often use Truman's speech to Congress on March 12, 1947, to date the start of the Cold War. -
The Marshall Plan is put into affect
In the immediate post-World War II period, Europe remained ravaged by war and thus susceptible to exploitation by an internal and external Communist threat. Secretary of State George C. Marshall issued a call for a comprehensive program to rebuild Europe. Fanned by the fear of Communist expansion, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act in March 1948 and approved funding that would eventually rise to over $12 billion for the rebuilding of Western Europe. -
The Berlin Airlift crisis
The Berlin Airlift crisis started on June 24, 1948, when Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany. -
NATO is formed
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Start of the Korean War
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the Northern Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated attack along the 38th parallel. Concerned that the Soviet Union and Communist China might have encouraged this invasion, President Harry S. Truman committed United States military forces to the combined United Nations forces assisting the Republic of Korea in its defense. President Truman designated General Douglas MacArthur as Commanding General of the United Nations Command. -
The End of the Korean War
On July 27, 1953, seven months after President Eisenhower's inauguration as the 34th President of the United States, an armistice was signed, ending organized combat operations and leaving the Korean Peninsula divided much as it had been since the close of World War II at the 38th parallel. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania. This made heightened tensions because now both sides had alliances. -
The Eisenhower Doctrine
President Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957. Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces. -
The Space Race
The launch of Sputnik 1 was the first object in outer space, but it also initiated a major portion of the space race within the Cold War, including the production of ICBMs, which created a new aura of hostility between the two powerful nations. -
U-2
At the height of the cold war, as critics of the Eisenhower administration complained about the growing "missile gap," the United States secretly gathered data on Soviet missile capabilities through photographs obtained from U-2 reconnaissance plane overflights of the Soviet Union. In October 1962, the U-2 photographed the buildup of Soviet offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba, touching off the Cuban Missile Crisis.