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The Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference divided Germany into four different zones shared between Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and The United State.
The conference was also able to bring Nazi criminals under control. Additionally, it was able to set up a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity 'pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections. -
Berlin Declaration
Berlin Declaration
The Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Kingdom, and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, hereby assume supreme authority with respect to Germany, including all the powers possessed by the German Government, the High Command and any state, municipal, or local government or authority. The assumption, for the purposes stated above, of the said authority and powers does not effect the annexation of Germany. -
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The Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The protocols of the Potsdam Conference suggested continued harmony among the Allies, but the deeply conflicting aims of the Western democracies on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other in fact meant that Potsdam was to be the last Allied summit conference. -
North Vietnam
Vietnam Independence
Hours after Japan’s surrender in World War II, Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh declares the independence of Vietnam from France. The proclamation paraphrased the U.S. Declaration of Independence in declaring, “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!” -
Iron Curtain Speech
Iron Curtain Speech
In one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. -
The Containment Policy
The Containment Policy
Containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. Truman was the first president to embrace containment and use it as a policy. He funded Greek and Turkish governments to rebuild after WWII because he did not want communist influence to infiltrate and overcome weak countries. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan
Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
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The Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade
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. Eventually, the western powers instituted an airlift that lasted nearly a year and delivered much-needed supplies and relief to West Berlin. -
The Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Blockade
On June 26, 1948, the first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. It was a daunting logistical task to provide food, clothing, water, medicine, and other necessities of life for the over 2 million fearful citizens of the city. For nearly a year, American planes landed around the clock. Over 200,000 planes carried in more than one-and-a-half million tons of supplies. -
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NATO
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. After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security. -
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Korean War - American Involvement
The Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel.This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. -
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Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Trial
The trial against the Rosenbergs began on March 6, 1951. From the beginning, the trial attracted a high amount of media attention and generated a largely polarized response from observers, some of whom believed the Rosenbergs to be clearly guilty, and others who asserted their innocence. The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and sentenced to death under Section 2 of the Espionage Act. They were executed by the electric chair on June 19, 1953. -
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President Dwight. D Eisenhower
President Eisenhower
Bringing to the Presidency his prestige as commanding general of the victorious forces in Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and worked incessantly during his two terms to ease the tensions of the Cold War. -
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. -
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The Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution
The people of Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe were ruled over with a rod of iron by Communist Russia and anybody who challenged the rule of Stalin and Russia paid the price. students and workers took to the streets of Budapest (the capital of Hungary ) and issued their Sixteen Points which included personal freedom, more food, the removal of the secret police, the removal of Russian control etc. -
Sputnik
Sputnik
The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The U.S. government, military, and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the “space race.” -
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Nikita Khrushchev's Rule
Nikita Khrushcev
Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, serving as premier. Though he largely pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, he instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by placing nuclear weapons 90 miles from Florida. At home, he initiated a process of “de-Stalinization” that made Soviet society less repressive. Yet Khrushchev could be authoritarian in his own right, crushing a revolt in Hungary and approving the construction of the Berlin Wall. -
The Cuban Revolution
Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, came to power promising democracy and freedom. -
The U2 Incident
The U2 Incident
The USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot. Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Eisenhower was forced to admit to the U.S. CIA had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. The Soviets convicted the pilot on espionage charges and traded the pilot with a captured Soviet agent. -
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President John F. Kennedy
President JFK
As president, Kennedy confronted mounting Cold War tensions in Cuba, Vietnam and elsewhere. He also led a renewed drive for public service and eventually provided federal support for the growing civil rights movement. His assassination on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, sent shockwaves around the world and turned the all-too-human Kennedy into a larger-than-life heroic figure. -
1st Man In Space
1st Man In Space
April 12 was already a huge day in space history twenty years before the launch of the first shuttle mission. On that day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. -
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The Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs
The Cuban-exile invasion force, known as Brigade 2506, landed at beaches along the Bay of Pigs and immediately came under heavy fire. President Kennedy authorized an "air-umbrella" at dawn on April 19—six unmarked American fighter planes took off to help defend the brigade's B-26 aircraft flying. The invasion failed. -
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall
In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. -
President John F. Kennedy's Assassination
JFK's Assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The United States Congress overwhelming approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. The resolution marked the beginning of an expanded military role for the United States in the Cold War battlefields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. -
The Vietnam War - America's Involvement
America and Vietnam
Beginning in September, the Khanh government was succeeded by a bewildering array of cliques and coalitions, some of which stayed in power less than a month. In the countryside even the best ARVN units seemed incapable of defeating the main forces of the Viet Cong. The communists were now deliberately targeting U.S. military personnel and bases, beginning with a mortar attack on the U.S. air base at Bien Hoa near Saigon in November. -
The Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive
70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, news coverage of the offensive shocked and dismayed the American public and further eroded support for the war effort. North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive. -
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President Richard Nixon
President Nixon
Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president, is best remembered as the only president ever to resign from office. Nixon stepped down in 1974, halfway through his second term, rather than face impeachment over his efforts to cover up illegal activities by members of his administration in the Watergate scandal. -
The Apollo 11
The Apollo 11
Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin into an initial Earth-orbit of 114 by 116 miles. -
SALT I
SALT I
The United States and the Soviet Union began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) on limiting both ABM defensive systems and strategic nuclear offensive systems. The Soviet Union proposed that the negotiations should be limited to discussions of ABM systems only, while the United States insisted that it was essential to make at least a beginning at limiting offensive systems as well. -
The Paris Peace Accord
The Paris Peace Accords
The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam formally sign “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” in Paris. Due to South Vietnam’s unwillingness to recognize the Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government, all references to it were confined to a two-party version of the document signed by North Vietnam and the United States—the South Vietnamese were presented with a separate document that did not make reference to the Viet Cong government. -
The Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon
Saigon, capital city of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces on April 30th 1975. The fall of Saigon (now Ho Chin Minh City) effectively marked the end of the Vietnam War. After the introduction of Vietnamisation by President Richard Nixon, US forces in South Vietnam had been constantly reduced leaving the military of South Vietnam to defend their country against the North. -
SALT II
SALT II
SALT II set more specific regulations on the different missiles. Limits were set on the number of strategic launchers, and the various types of missiles. Each side was limited to no more then 2400 weapons systems. In the years following, some of the standards set in SALT II were voluntarily being observed by the two sides, but the treaty was never ratified. -
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President Ronald Reagan
President Reagan
Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. -
Reagan & Gorbachev Meet
Reagan & Gorbachev
For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. For Gorbachev, the meeting was another clear signal of his desire to obtain better relations with the United States so that he could better pursue his domestic reforms. -
The Reykjavik Summit
The Reykjavik Summit
On October 11, 1986, halfway between Moscow and Washington, D.C., the leaders of the world’s two superpowers met at the stark and picturesque Hofdi House in Reykjavik, Iceland. Gorbachev agreed that human rights issues were a legitimate topic of discussion, something no previous Soviet leader had ever agreed to. A proposal to eliminate all new strategic missiles grew into a discussion, for the first time in history, of the real possibility of eliminating nuclear weapons forever. -
The Tiananmen Square Massacre
The Tiananmen Square Incident
Protesters remained in large numbers in Tiananmen Square, centring themselves around a plaster statue called “Goddess of Democracy,” near the northern end of the square. On the night of June 3–4, tanks and heavily armed troops advanced toward Tiananmen Square, opening fire on or crushing those who again tried to block their way. Once the soldiers reached the square, a number of the few thousand remaining demonstrators there chose to leave rather than face a continuation of the confrontation. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall FallsOn 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. Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since 1945. The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. -
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The Gulf War
The Gulf War
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. After 42 days of relentless attacks by the allied coalition in the air and on the ground, U.S. President George H.W. Bush declared a cease-fire. -
The Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The End of the Soviet Union
On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. A few days earlier, representatives from 11 Soviet republics met in the Kazakh city of Alma-Ata and announced that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union. The once-mighty Soviet Union had fallen, largely due to the great number of radical reforms that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented during his six years as the leader of the USSR.
