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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions that took place in Russia in 1917 during the last period of World War 1. It demolished the tsarists autocracy and it led to the rise of the Soviet Union. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary that divided Europe into 2 separate areas from the end of WWII to the Cold War in 1991. -
The Potsdam Conference
the Potsdam Conference was took place in Potsdam, Germany. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and president Truman meet to negotiate terms for the end of WWII. There was a disagreement between Stalin and president Truman which ended up causing the beginning of the cold war. -
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
During the final stage of WWII, The U.S dropped and atomic bomb on Hiroshima and a second bomb on Nagasaki in order for Japan to surrender. The two bombings combined killed almost 129,000 people. Japan surrendered and WWII ended in august 15. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov plan was a system made by the soviet union that would provide aid to rebuild countries in eastern Europe that were aligned to the Soviet Union. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood 10 were 10 motion-picture producers,screenwriters, and directors who refused to answer communist related questions and were imprisoned for contempt to congress. these 10 people were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. while in prison, Dmytryk revealed he was a communist and 26 others were also. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a foreign policy that countered soviet expansion during the Cold war. It was announced to congress by President Harry S. Truman. -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was an amercian government official who was accused of being a Soviet spy. On August 3, 1948, former U.S. communist party member Whittaker Chambers, testified before the HUAC that Hiss was secretly a communist while in federal service. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall plan was American initiative to aid western Europe where the U.S. gave over $13,000,000,000 to help rebuild western European economies after the end of WWII. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international catastrophes of the cold war. The soviet union had blocked western allies' road, railway, and canal access to Berlin. The Soviet Union said they would take down the blockade if they withdrew the Deutsche Mark. the Western allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry supplies for the people in west Berlin in response. -
Berlin Airlift
The West allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry fuel and food and other supplies to the people of west Berlin. Air crews from the U.S. air force, British air force, French air force, etc. flew over 200,000 flights in 1 year. Soviet didn't do anything about it because of fear of starting an open conflict. On May 12, 1949 the soviets lifted the blockade. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was an intergovernmental military alliance created by the US, Canada, and several western European nations to provide security against the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, NATO's main purpose was to strengthen and unify the western Allies' military response to possible invasion of western Europe by the Soviets and allies -
Soviet Atomic Bomb Test
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb. The U.S. was shocked because they were not expecting the Soviets to possess any knowledge about nuclear weapons. -
Korean War
The Korean war was between north Korea and south Korea. The war started when north Korea invaded south Korea following a series of clashes on the border. -
Rosenburg Trial
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were US citizens who were executed on June 19, 1953 after being convicted of committing espionage for the Soviets. They were accused of transferring nuclear weapon designs and providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines to the USSR. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The battle of Die Bien Phu was the first Indochina war between the French far east Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist-nationalist revolutionaries. -
Army-McCarthy hearings
The Army-McCarthy hearings was a series hearings held by the US to investigate the conflicts between the US and the US senator McCarthy. -
Geneva Conference
The Geneva conference was a conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland. It was intended to settle issues resulting from the Korean war to Indochina war -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw pact was a defense treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of central and eastern Europe during the Cold war. The Warsaw pact was created in reaction to the integration of west Germany in to NATO. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution was a huge revolt against the government of the Hungarian peoples' republic and its policies -
U2 incident
The U2 incident happened during the Cold war during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. A US U-2 spy plane was shot to the ground while in Soviet airspace while also taking photographs of the Soviet Union's denied territory. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA sponsored military group Brigade 2506. the invasion actually helped to strengthen the position of Fidel Castro's leadership and the relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin wall was huge concrete wall/border that divided east and west Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The wall cut off West Berlin from all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until the government opened it in November 1989. GDR authorities referred to it as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart while the west Berlin city referred to it as the wall of shame because of the walls restriction of freedom of movement. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. it was the moment the two powers ever came very close to nuclear conflict. -
Assassination of Diem
on November 2, 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu were assassinated during a CIA-backed coup d'état. He was the first president of the republic of Vietnam. -
assassination of JFK
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dealey plaza, Dallas,Texas. The investigation as to who killed JFK lasted 10 months and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy. Right after Kennedy's death Lyndon B. Johnson automatically became the following president. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing President Johnson to take any measures that were necessary to reincorporate and promote the maintenance of international peace in southeast Asia -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the name of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the 2nd air division by the US. The 4 objectives of the operation was to boost the morale of the Saigon regime in the republic of Vietnam. It became the most intense air/ground battle pursued during the Cold War period. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one the largest military campaigns of Vietnam war. In January, 1968, during the lunar new year holiday, by the forces of North Vietnamese peoples Army of Vietnam and communist Viet Cong launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was an american clergy man and a civil rights leader. He was shot at the Lorraine hotel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968 by James Earl Ray and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He then died in prison at the age of 70 -
Assassination of RFK
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles after just winning the California presidential primaries in the election of 1968. he died the following day while being hospitalized. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
on the night of august 20 1968, Warsaw pact nations, Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, and Poland invaded Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague. -
Riots of Democratic Convention
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Election of Nixon
republican nominee and former vice president Richard Nixon won the election over vice president Hubert Humphrey at the United States Presidential election of 1968. Nixon promised to restore law and order to the nation's cities and provide leadership to the Vietnam war. -
Kent State
During a huge protest against the Vietnam War at Kent sate University in Kent, Ohio, 4 students were killed while 9 were wounded by Guardsmen. In response, hundreds of universities and high schools closed throughout the US due to a student strike of 4 million students. The event further affected public opinion at an already catastrophic time over the roll of the US involve in the Vietnam war. -
Nixon visits China
President Richard Nixon visits china for seven days from February 21, 1972 to February 8, 1972. It was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's rapprochement between China and the US. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
President Nixon made a major compromise to North Vietnam by announcing that the United States would accept a ceasefire of the aerial bombings in North Vietnam as a precondition for its military withdrawal. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon where communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces captured the capitol of Saigon. It forced South Vietnam to surrender which marked the end of the Vietnam war and the start of a transition to the formal reunification of Vietnam -
President Reagan elected
In 1981, former actor and California governor Ronald Reagan was elected as the 40th president. He cut taxes, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets, increased defense spending, and was credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. -
SDI announcement
President Reagan announced the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative. It was a project that would have a space-base anti-missile system which would prevent missile attacks from other countries, the Soviet Union. it was nicknamed Star Wars also. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
the Geneva conference with Gorbachev was a Cold war-era meeting that took place in Geneva, Switzerland. It was between president Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. the two met for the first time to hold talks about international diplomatic relations and arm race. -
"Tear down this wall" speech
On June 12, 1987, president Ronald Reagan gave a speech in west Berlin calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev to break down the Berlin wall which separated west and east Berlin. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall was officially demolished and brought back together west Berlin and east Berlin. It lead to the end of the Cold war as well.
