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Buffer States of the USSR
The Communist world was limited to the Soviet Union, it rapidly spread to Central and Eastern Europe, forming a protective buffer zone for the USSR. #Containment Theory -
Atomic Bomb
During the final stage of World War II, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. #Brinksmanship -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. #Detente -
U.S. Aid to Greece
The extension of military and economic aid to Greece in 1947 plunged the United States into deep involvement in Greek affairs before American public opinion had any understanding of the difficulties that would be encountered under a policy of supporting free nations against aggression in distant parts of the world. #Detente -
U.S. Aid to Turkey
Millions of dollars worth of military and economic aid was also given to Turkey. #Detente -
Berlin Airlift
the Russians closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. They believed this would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. #Brinksmanship -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. #Detente -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. #Containment Theory -
NATO Established
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty. #Detente -
Communists Win China
The Communists take power 1949. In 1945 the Americans reinstated Chiang Kai-shek as ruler of China, and tried to organise a truce between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, but after the surrender of Japan a civil war broke out, which the Communists won after a vicious struggle. #Domino Theory -
USSR Gets Atomic Bomb
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” #MAD -
Korean War
The Korean War was 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. #Domino Theory -
Coup in Iran
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. #Domino Theory -
Coup in Guatemala
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. #Domino Theory -
Warsaw Pact Formed
The Warsaw Pact, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states. #Detente -
Beginning of Troops in Vietnam
Troops were drafted in the U.S. to go to war in Vietnam. #Deterrence -
Suez Canal Crisis
The Suez Crisis or the Second Arab–Israeli War also named the Tripartite Aggression and Operation Kadesh or Sinai War, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. #Deterrence -
Hungary (Rebellion)
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 or the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the communist government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. #Containment Theory -
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. #MAD -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, 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. Disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. #Brinksmanship -
China Explodes Atomic Bomb
In July 1960 Chairman Mao Zedong called on Chinese scientists to rely on their own efforts and develop China's atomic bomb within eight years. #MAD -
Coup in Chile
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event in both the history of Chile and the Cold War. Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress of Chile and the socialist President Salvador Allende, as well as economic warfare ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon, Allende was overthrown by the armed forces and national police. #Brinksmanship -
End of Troops in Vietnam
The last remaining American troops withdraw from Vietnam as President Nixon declares "the day we have all worked and prayed for has finally come." #Detente -
Communist Angola
The People's Republic of Angola covers the period of Angolan history as a self-declared socialist state established in 1975 after it was granted independence from Portugal, akin to the situation in Mozambique. #Domino Theory -
Sandinistas Rise Up in Nicaragua
The Revolution marked a significant period in Nicaraguan history and revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War with the events in the country rising to international attention. #Deterrence -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union intervened in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anticommunist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War (1978–92) and remained in Afghanistan until mid-February. #Domino Theory -
War in El Salvador
The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of several left-wing groups. #Brinksmanship -
Evil Empire Speech
The phrase evil empire was first applied to the Soviet Union in 1983 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who took an aggressive, hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities. #Deterrence -
Star Wars (S.D.I.)
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was 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. #Deterrence -
Iran Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. #Detente -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. #Detente -
Fall of the USSR
The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred on December 26, 1991, officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. #Containment Theory
