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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a communist revolution in Russia in 1917. This set up the ideological differences between democratic/capitalist American and communist Russia. -
The Potsdam Conference
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Harry Truman met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. This discussion resulted in keeping peace with Europe, secure political freedoms and defeating Germany. -
Atomic Bomb
The US was the first and only nation to use atomic bombs in wartime. On this day, an american B-29 bomber drops the worlds first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. About 200,000 people were killed and others wounded from this bomb being dropped. President Harry Truman at the time, made the decision to drop the bomb to put an end to war. -
Containment
Containment was a strategy that most Americans agreed was the best defense against the Soviet Union. George F. Kennan explained this policy, explaining that the Soviet Union was a political force that committed to the belief that with the US there can't be permanent agreement between parties that disagree. President Harry Truman agreed it must be a policy of the United States. This formed American foreign policy. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the barrier that separated the communist from the non communist areas. It meant seperation and isolation It was set by the soviet union after WWII to seperate them from central and eastern european allies from contact from the west or any other non communist areas. This was recognized as the "Iron Curtain," by Winston Churchhill in his speech. -
The Hollywood 10
10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the HUAC. An investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its time of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, also known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. -
The Truman Doctrine
President Truman requested aid of the countries Greece and Turkey after the British announced they could no longer afford to support the pro western governments of the Mediterranean during their fight against communism. The address sent a clear message to the soviets. The presidents appeal was named the Truman Doctrine. It represented a dramatic change in US foreign policy. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was a system created by the Soviet union in order to provide aid to rebuild countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the soviet union. -
The Marshall Plan
A month after the Truman Doctrine, George Marshall, the secretary of state traveled to Europe to witness the physical ruin, social disintegration, and economic collapse that the war left. 2 months later Marshall proposed a program of massive economic assistance called the Marshall Plan. It was directed against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos to avoid communism. The soviets refused to help. Food was distributed, machinery, and technical support, and homes and businesses were rebuilt. -
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. The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
The Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift began in response to the Berlin blockade. The US started a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to citizens surrounding the city. Supplies coming from these american planes sustained over 2 million people. Allied cargo planes would use open air corridors over the Soviet occupation zone to deliver food, fuel and other goods to the people who lived in the western part of the city. -
NATO
(the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an international alliance that consists of 29 member states from North America and Europe to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. It was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. Their purpose was to unify and strengthen the western allies military response. -
Soviet bomb test
The Soviet Union's first ever atomic bomb was dropped. The code name was "First Lightning." In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals.. -
Alger Hiss case
Former State Department official, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. He served about 4 years of time in jail. -
Korean War
the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. It was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s part. -
Rosenberg trial
The trial began at the New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians, yet the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union at the time. Some believed that the Rosenbergs were prosecuted because of their membership in the Communist Party. The trial lasted nearly a month, finally ending on April 4 and they were sentenced to death row on April 6. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
A series of hearings held by the US senate's subcommittee on investigations to investigate problems between the US army and US senator at the time, Joseph McCarthy. The army accused him f pressuring them to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected Communists and security risks in the Army. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The engagement in the first Indochina War. After French forces occupied the Dien Bien Phu valley , Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and put heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. Giap launched a massive assault on strong point Beatrice, which fell in a matter of hours. As the monsoons transformed the camp from a dust bowl into a morass of mud, almost four thousand soliders by the end deserted to caves along the Nam Yum River. 14,000 men were lost. -
Geneva Conference
A conference involving many different nations, intended to settle outstanding issues from the results of the Korean War and first Indochina war. South Korea, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, USSR, and the US dealt with the Korean side of the Conference. The agreement temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones, a northern zone to be governed by the Viet Minh rebels, and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam. -
Warsaw Pact
Formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, the warsaw pact was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe. It was a political and military alliance formed by the Soviet union as a counterbalance to NATO. -
Hungarian Revolution
A nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People's Republic and it's soviet imposed policies. It began as a student protest that later attracted thousands to join. The revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government collapsed. Thousands organised into militias. A new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, the fighting had almost stopped. -
U-2 Incident
Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. The Soviet Union refused to accept that the U.S. government had had no knowledge of the flights and on May 13 sent protest notes to Turkey, Pakistan, and Norway. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
JFK inherited an all or nothing defense strategy that provided 2 military options: Humiliation or Holocaust for dealing with threats from the soviet union, then a new strategy emerged called the Flexible response. Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba and U.S. leaders feared that he was a communist and a liability so the CIA were armed and trained and invaded Cuba. The result was humiliation. -
Berlin Wall
the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete wall between East and West Berlin. The purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep Western people from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming bigger problems from East to West. November 9, 1989, the head of the East German Communist Party said that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they wanted. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
also known as the October Crisis of 1962 the Caribbean Crisis , or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by the American discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. This is the closest it came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets would return their offense weapons. -
Assassination of Diem
President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers, following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before. His death caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, yet lead to political chaos in the nation. The US became more involved in Vietnam. -
Assassination of JFK
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit.The driver of the president’s Lincoln limousine, raced to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, but after being shot in the neck and head, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 46 years old. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. The Johnson administration relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was a code name for an American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam. It was intended to put military pressure on North Vietnam’s communist leaders and reduce their capacity to wage war against the U.S. Although North Vietnam did not have much of an air force, its leaders managed to mount an effective defense against the bombing raids. -
Tet offensive
A series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. It was considered to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. they could not sustain the heavy losses inflicted by the Americans indefinitely and had to win the war with an all-out military effort. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. -
Assassination of RFK
On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42-year-old junior senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California presidential primaries in the 1968 election. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
officially known as Operation Danube, was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact countries the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany and Hungary on the night of 20-21 August 1968. -
Riots of Democratic convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois. The convention was held during a year of violence, political turbulence, and civil unrest, particularly riots in more than 100 cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4. -
Election of Nixon
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. -
Kent State
students protesting the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces, clashed with Ohio National Guardsmen on the Kent State University campus. When the Guardsmen shot and killed four students on May 4, the Kent State Shootings became the focal point of a nation deeply divided by the Vietnam War. -
Nixon visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the US and mainland China after years of diplomatic isolation. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
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
In late April 1975, the outskirts of Saigon were reached by the North Vietnamese Army. On April 29th, the United States knew that their token presence in the city would quickly become unwelcome, and the remaining Americans were evacuated by helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. -
Reagan elected
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 1980. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. -
SDI announced
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. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held 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 U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, calling for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961.
