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Cold War begins
The Cold War was caused by social climate and tension in Europe at the end of World War II. The Cold War was the geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle between two world superpowers, the USA and the USSR, that started in 1947 at the end of the Second World War and lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991. -
The Warsaw Pact was formed
The Warsaw Pact was formed to provide counterbalance to NATO and increasethe international negotiating power of the Soviet Union. The proximate cause of the Warsaw Pact was the May 9, 1955 decision of the governments of the United States and Western Europe to include West Germany in NATO. -
Bombs have been dropped
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. -
World War II
WWII ends in Europe -
The "Iron Curtain" was created
The Iron Curtain was a physical and symbolic structure used by the Soviet Union to isolate itself from surrounding eastern and central European nations after World War II. -
Truman Doctrine was Announced
The Truman Doctrine was announced because President Truman believed that the United States should intervene in foreign affairs in order to to contain the spread of Communism around the world. -
China drops atomic bomb
596 is the codename of the People's Republic of China's first nuclear weapons test at the Lop Nur test site. -
Fidel Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba
He installs Communist government. Fidel Castro is sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a guerrilla campaign that forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. -
Richard Nixon visits China
The U.S. was seeking to improve relations with a Communist country during the Cold War. -
The Berlin Wall Falls
More than 2 million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin that weekend to participate in a celebration that was, one journalist wrote, “the greatest street party in the history of the world.” People used hammers and picks to knock away chunks of the wall–they became known as “mauerspechte,” or “wall woodpeckers”—while cranes and bulldozers pulled down section after section. -
Mikhail Gorbachev elected president of the Soviet Union
The election vividly demonstrated the problems he faced in trying to formulate a domestic consensus supporting his political reform program.Gorbachev won the presidency, but by 1991 his domestic critics were pillorying him for the nation’s terrible economic performance and faltering control over the Soviet empire. -
Cold War ends
