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Joseph Stalin
Born on December 18, 1879, in Gori, Georgia, Joseph Stalin rose to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party, becoming a Soviet dictator upon Vladimir Lenin's death. Stalin forced rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agricultural land, resulting in millions dying from famine while others were sent to camps. His Red Army helped defeat Nazi Germany during WWII. -
Ho Chi-Minh
Ho Chi-Minh was born on May 19, 1890, in Nghe An Province, Vietnam. In 1921, he organized the Inter colonial Union. He was elected to the Committee of the Peasants' International Congress in 1923. In 1936, he took charge of China’s Indochinese Communist party. He declared Vietnam’s independence in 1945 and became the first president of the republic in 1954. He died on September 3, 1969, in Hanoi, Vietnam. -
John F. Kennedy
Born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate before becoming the 35th president in 1961. As president, Kennedy faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin during the Cold War, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta conference occurs, deciding the post-war status of Germany. The Allies divide Germany into four occupation zones. The Allied nations agree that free elections are to be held in all countries occupied by Nazi Germany. The new UN are to replace the League of Nations -
The Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain formed the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of WW2 in 1945 until the end of the Cold War -
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter communism during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
USSR Propaganda of The Cold War
This piece of propaganda by the Soviet Union shows how communism is good and how it unites the people. It is a way to persuade the people that they should cherish and accept communism as the way to govern a nation. -
US Propaganda of The Cold War
This US propaganda poster labels communism as an iceberg and democracy as a boat with Uncle Sam riding on it. The poster describes communism as a threat to the US and its allies. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the US gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of WW2 -
The Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crisis of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on April 4, 1949.The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party, especially Communism. -
Cold War Tech- The Hydrogen Bomb
Popularly known as the hydrogen bomb, this new weapon was approximately 1,000 times more powerful than conventional nuclear devices. This new weaponry would be developed by both the US and the Soviet Union during the arms race in the Cold War. Having both the US and USSR to be able to produce these weapons created brinkmanship and M.A.D. Basically, if one nation were to launch a nuclear attack, the other nation would also launch an attack, resulting in the destruction of both nations. -
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty among the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was created to counter NATO, as it was seen as a threat to the Soviet Union and communism. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a Cold War-era proxy war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies—and the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States, Philippines and other anti-communist allies. -
Illustration #1
This illustration shows the idea of brinkmanship and Mutually Assured Destruction. Both the US and USSR are on the edge of war, and if one nation decides to launch a nuclear strike, the other side will do the same, resulting in both the US and Soviet Union destroying one another. -
Illustration #2
This illustration signifies that the Soviet Union is the one to blame for the Cold War. It shows Nikita Khrushchev and a USSR general melting a bear that is encased in ice. The bear is labeled as the Cold War and the Soviet Union has a match that is slowly "heating up" the Cold War. -
Illustration #3
This illustration symbolizes the Soviet Unions domination in Czechoslovakia after World War II. It also shows how the "Iron Curtain" has clamped down on it. This can also symbolize the Prague Spring since Czechoslovakia is shown as a person and part of his arm is on one side while the body is on the other. The arm can symbolize more freedom for the citizens when reforms were being made, and the body on the other side can symbolize the invasion of the USSR to halt the reforms. -
Chart #1
This chart shows the increased development of US nuclear warheads during the arms race against the USSR. -
Chart #2
This chart shows the increase amount in military on both the US ans USSR from 1946-1990. The data includes both oversea forces and forces that occupied Germany. -
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. -
The U-2 incident
The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. 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
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency, Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front and intended to overthrow the increasingly communist government of Fidel Castro. -
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, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
The Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. -
Map of the Iron Curtain
Map of the Iron Curtain and the division of the western block and the eastern block. -
Map of the Cold War #1
A map of NATO, Warsaw Pact, alliances of the US and USSR, and non-aligned nations in the Cold War in 1980. -
Music Video- 2 Minutes to Midnight
The song "2 Minutes to Midnight" refers to the Doomsday Clock, the symbolic clock used by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In September 1953 the clock reached 23:58, the closest the clock ever got to midnight. This occurred when the United States and Soviet Union tested H-bombs within nine months of one another.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qbRHY1l0vc -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26, 1991. On the previous day, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag, signifying the end of the Soviet Union. -
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