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Yalta Conference Meeting
Meeting of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the conference, the three leaders agreed to demand Germany’s unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. Yalta became controversial after Soviet-American wartime cooperation degenerated into the cold war. -
Russia declares War on Japan
The commencement of the invasion fell between the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The only way Stalin could make Far Eastern gains without a two-front war would be for Germany to capitulate before Japan -
Japanese surrender End of World War II
This was followed immediately by the declarations of war on this country by Germany and Italy, the other Axis partners, which engaged the United States in the global conflict that now, in its military phases, is wholly won. -
Truman demands Russia leave Iran
As it was becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet Union was going to miss its agreed upon deadline for withdrawing their forces from jointly occupied Iran (The British and American forces withdrew within the deadline, per the agreement), the United Nations passed Resolution 2, urging Iran and the Soviet Union to reach a speedy agreement. -
Loyalty Program
The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government. Truman aimed to rally public opinion behind his Cold War policies with investigations conducted under its authority. He also hoped to quiet right-wing critics who accused Democrats of being soft on communism -
Berlin Bllockade Begins
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. -
NATO Ratified
The United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe. NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military alliance against the Soviet Union throughout the duration of the Cold War. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Launched from Guatemala, the invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, under the direct command of Prime Minister Fidel Castro. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missiles deployment in Cuba. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Apollo 11
The Soviet Union was secretly attempting to compete with the US in landing a man on the Moon but had been hampered by repeated failures in development of a launcher comparable to the Saturn V.[66] Meanwhile, they tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of unmanned probes. -
Nixon Visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States (U.S.) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War. It ended direct U.S. military combat, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam. -
Decline of the Soviet Union
Poland, which quickly led to the toppling of the Communist government in Warsaw that summer – which in turn sparked uprisings that overthrew communism in the other five Warsaw Pact countries before the end of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. -
Destruction of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, -
End Of the Soviet Union and the Cold War Ends
