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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution across the territory of the Russian Empire which started with the abolishment of monarchy and concluded with the establishment of the Soviet Union by the Bolsheviks and the end of the civil war. (March 8, 1917 - November 7, 1917) -
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was a conference at the end of WWII that discussed the future of Europe after the war. Featuring American President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (and his successor, Clement Attlee) and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, containment of the USSR was discussed as a prority. (July 17, 1945 - August 2, 1945) -
Atomic bomb - Hiroshima/Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. (August 6, 1945 - August 9, 1945) -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was a speech in which Winston Churchill referred to the Soviet Union as the Iron Curtain. -
Long Telegram
The Long Telegram was a review of how the Soviet Union saw the world. The Clifford-Elsey Report took those facts and interpreted how they affected the world and what the United States should do about it. It was written by George Kennan. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman when he pledged to contain threats in Greece and Turkey. Truman sent combat troops to Korea to stop the spread of Communism. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood 10 were 10 members of the Hollywood film industry that publicly refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt 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. Stalin wanted to blockade Germany because we introduced a unified currency in West Germany. (June 24, 1948 - May 12, 1949) -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift saw the United States fly in coal, food, medical supplies, etc. to a city in Germany. (June 26, 1948 - September 30, 1949) -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was an American government official who was accused of spying for the Soviet Union, but statutes of limitations had expired for espionage. He was convicted of perjury in connection with this charge. (August 3, 1948 - January 21, 1950) -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. It was formed as a result of the Berlin Blockade. It was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
First Soviet Bomb Test
RDS-1, the first Soviet atomic test was internally code-named First Lightning, and was code-named by the Americans as Joe 1. The design was very similar to the first US "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, using a TNT/hexogen implosion lens design. -
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy made wild accusations of communism in the U.S. government. -
Rosenberg Trial
Julius Rosenberg was a key Soviet spy who passed along information to the Soviet Union and recruited Manhattan Project spies. Julius and his wife Ethel were tried and convicted of espionage for providing the Soviet Union with classified information.They were executed for their actions. Their trial remains controversial today. (June 17 1950 - June 19, 1953) -
Korean War
The Korean War was a conflict between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in which at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. Korea was split at the 38th parallel. The war reached international proportions in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South. (June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953) -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. (May 14, 1955 - July 1, 1991) -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution was a nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. Leaderless at the beginning, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the Red Army drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the End of World War II in Europe. (October 23, 1956 - November 10, 1956) -
U2 Incident
The U2 Incident was when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed attempt by US-sponsored Cuban exiles to reverse Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, beginning with a military invasion of northern Cuba. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile, 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. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
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. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
China became communist in 1949. The Chinese Communist Revolution, led by the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Zedong resulted in the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. The revolution began after the Second Sino-Japanese War and was the second part of the Chinese Civil War. (August 8, 1966 - August 18, 1977) -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact 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. -
Nixon Visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and mainland China after years of diplomatic isolation. It was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC. -
Reagan Elected
Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 49th quadrennial Unite States presidential election. -
SDI Announced
Reagan announced Strategic Defense Initiative in a nationally televised speech, stating "I call upon the scientific community who gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland 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", also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, is a speech delivered by Ronald Reagan in West Berlin. Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had separated West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later, and the reunification of Germany took place during the following year. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany. East Germany built it to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany.
