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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution is one of the most tense political events during the twentieth century. It concluded the the Romanov dynasty and centuries of Russian sovereign rule. Poor living conditions for a new class of Russian workers. -
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was a meeting between Winston Churchill, Stalin, and Harry Truman. The conference was set to discuss the ending terms of WWII. -
Atomic Bomb
The code name for the Atomic bomb was the Manhattan Project. This was top secret, and the only people who knew anything about it was the leading scientist, Warner Heisenberg, and the U.S. president. The U.S. then proceeded to drop two bombs, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki, in Japan. This killed up to 200 thousand people, and changed war for the rest of the world. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain is a wall dividing Europe into two different groups after WWII. It kept the land that the Soviet Union claimed for Communism separate from the Western and Non-Communistic groups. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine is a document that changes the foreign policy in America. Truman vowed to send financial and military aid to countries like Greece and Turkey to save said countries from forcefully being takin' by communism. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was created by the Soviet Union to give political and economic aid to Western European Countries under Russian control to spread communism. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood 10 is a group from the film industry employed by the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. -
Berlin Airlift
After WWII Berlin and all of Europe were split into four sections. Britain, France, American, and the Soviet Union. All four agreed to allow free voting and basic rights. The Soviet Union decided against that, starving all of the citizens. America took action by dropping supplies into the Soviet Union's sector. The dropped anything from candy, to medical supplies. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan created by George C. Marshall. It was also known as European Recovery. The U.S. sent 13 billion dollars to European countries to help rebuild their economies after WWII. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was started June 6, 1948, to May 19, 1949. Post-WWII the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies. They cut off access to railroad and canal leading to Berlin under western control. -
Alger Hiss Case
HUAC stands for House Un-American Committee. This committee has the power to put any person on the stand for doing anything they deem to be Un-American. On August 3rd Whittaker Chambers was tried by the committee, for being accused of being a Soviet spy. American society thought that communist forces were slowly integrating in through the cracks of America. -
NATO
NATO (Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization) was created to be a military alliance. Many Western European Countries including Canada, and the U.S. came together in order to fight the Soviet Union. -
Soviet Bomb Test
The first atomic bomb tested by the Soviet Union was codenamed "First Lightning". The Rosenburgs passed American bomb secrets to the Soviets. The first bomb tested was quite similar to the Americans first atomic bomb "Fat Man". The testing sent the U.S. into a fright. -
Rosenberg Trial
Mr. Ethel and Ms. Juiles Rosenbergs were tried by the HUAC for being thought to be spies. Since the U.S. and the Soviets wern't at war, the judge could not charge the Rosenbergs with treason. Though, he did sentence them to death by the electric chair taking place on June 19, 1953. -
Korean War
The Korean War, from June 25, 1950, had 75,000 soldiers from North Korea enter into the 38th parallel being ruled by the Soviet Union. The U.S. stepped in for South Korea. This was the first attack during the Cold War. By July 27, 1953, the back-and-forth had stalled the fight, and the Korean War was over. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The battle of Dien Bien Phu was a struggle between French and Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist and nationalist) forces for control of a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
The Army-McCarthy hearings, April 22, 1954. Joseph R. McCarthy was famous for his violent iteration tactics, forcing people to confess to being a communist. He became extremely famous. Then he started calling the era "The McCarthyism Era". Someone called him out on his claims and he was found out to be a fool. He lost everything and became an outsider. -
Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference is a meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland. It started April 26 and ended July 20, 1954. The conference was held to settle outstanding issues resulting in Korean War and the first Indochina War. -
Warsaw Pact
This treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland. It was signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. The treaty was created to call a truce and agree to help anyone who signed the pact from an attack from an outsider who wasn't part of the Warsaw Pact. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder is the title of a sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S. The 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) fought against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from the March 2nd 1965 until November 2nd 1968. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution is a national revolt against the government way of ruling. The revolt lasted about one month. The citizens of Hungaria protested, and went to the streets demanding a more democratic political system as well as freedom from the Soviet oppression. The Soviet Union put an end to the revloution, but they weren't nice about it. The Soviets had tanks role into Budapest and crush the uprise of the citizens. -
U2 Incident
The 1960 U-2 incident happened during the Cold War. During the presidency of Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
1400 Cuban launched a poor invasion on the bay of pigs in the South of the Cuban coastline. The Cuban's fled their homes after Castro took over, and the invasion did not go well. The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops. They surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. They realized they couldn't win the fight. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was 11.81', and construction began August 13, 1961, and that same day the wall started to divide Berlin physically and ideologically. The wall was built to divide East and West Berlin. The communist government wanted to keep East Berlin away from the free west of Berlin. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis started October 16 and went until October 28, 1962. The leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union had an intense 13 day of a political and military standoff. On October 22 the president told the U.S. the threat of missile and his plan of a blockade around Cuba. -
Assassination of Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem was the president of South Vietnam. Diem and his brother were arrested and killed on November 2, 1963. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy is the 35th president of the United States. He was 46 years old. JFK had been traveling with his wife and the Governor Connally. There had been a shot fired from the 6th floor of a building on the opposite side of the road. It hit the Governor and hit JFK. He was then pronounced dead 30 minutes after the shooting. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
On August 7, 1964, congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This authorized Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security within Southeast Asia. He had a blank check and could use it for anything. -
Tet Offensive
In Vietnam, Tet was known as a holiday. All events stopped, including war, but the North took advantage of this day and attacked the South. The American Embacy was attacked and then fled not expecting the attack. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther Luther King Jr. was shot at Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. From an opposing balcany, Martin was shot and was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. that evening. -
Riots of Democratic convention
Other events preceding the 1968 Democratic convention contributed to the tense national mood. On April 4, civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated and riots broke out throughout the country. (This included Chicago, where Mayor Daley reportedly gave a "shoot to kill" instruction to police.) -
Assasination of RFK
Robert F. Kennedy was severley shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5th, 1968. Shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, he died the next day while in the hospital. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, is a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact nations. The countries included: the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany and Hungary– on the nights of August 20th-21st 1968. -
Election of Nixon
The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, won the election after RFK had been pronounced dead, allowing Nixon to become President of the United States. -
Kent State
What was known as the Kent State shooting, was the death of four unarmed college students within the Vietnam War protests at Kent State. Nine others were seriously injured but not killed. -
Nixon visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China (officially the People's Republic of China or PRC) was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's rapprochement between the United States and China. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC; ending 25 years of no communication, between the two countries and normalized relations between the U.S. and China. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
On January 15, 1973, President Richard Nixon of the USA ordered a ceasefire of the aerial bombings in North Vietnam. The decision came after Dr. Henry Kissinger, the National Security Affairs advisor to the president, returned to Washington from Paris, France with a draft peace proposal. -
Fall of Saigon
The Liberation or otherwise known as the Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (also known as the Việt Cộng) on 30 April 1975. -
Reagan elected
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.He was elected on November 4th 1980. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles). The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held on November 19 and 20, 1985, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race. -
‘Tear down this wall’ speech
"Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall: The Fall of the 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.
