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Yalta Conference
Agree for Germany's unconditional surrender and decide how to break-up the post war states. -
Truman Doctrine
This established that the United States would help any democratic nation under threat by providing military, political, and economic assistance. effectively changing the foreign policy of the United States -
Marshall Plan
This was an American initiative to aid all democratic nations where they ended up giving out 13 billion dollars in aid to other nations to help rebuild or convince them to be democratic -
Berlin Blockade
This was an attempt by the Soviets to limit the ability of the U.S., France, and Great Britain from being able to travel to their parts of berlin -
Berlin Airlift
The soviets closed all land passages to west Berlin and the solution was to start flying stuff with planes constantly for about 11 months straight -
Arms Race
The arms race is more of an idea where they wanted to be ahead technologically as well with the amount of weapons that they have -
Korean War
It all started when the North Koreans backed by the soviets invaded the South crossing at the 38th parallel the Americans joined because they were worried about the spread of communism -
Joseph Stalin dies
It weakened the Soviet Union because after his death the renounced some of his brutal practices which many think is what was keeping the state alive and when he died they began to falter -
Warsaw Pact
A pact for Co-operation between seven soviet states to act as a counter to the NATO agreement -
Vietnam War
Another war because of a country being democratic and it being invaded by a communist government and with the Truman doctrine the U.S. decided to get involved -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarians tried to revolt and the whole world was watching because the soviets had just come under a new leader and they didn't know if he would allow them to continue or intervene eventually he intervened -
Suez Canal Crisis
Israeli armed forces joined with the French and British forces pushed into Egypt towards the canal almost bringing the USSR to war -
Space Race
The U.S. and the Soviets were in a race to get out to space first this race led to multiple advances in space technology -
Sputnik
The first satellite to orbit the Earth this caused a large panic in the U.S about the intention of the satellite and what its capabilities were -
U-2 Incident
A United States spy plane was shot down while over Soviet air space. The U.S. tried to deny it but had to admit to what the plane was doing when the Soviets came forward with the pilot and the photographs the plane took -
Spy Swap
The American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is released by the Soviets in exchange for Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel the two men were brought to separate sides of the Glienicker Bridge and were told to both walk across at the same time -
First Man to Space
Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel to space and live he orbited for about an hour and a half before returning to Earth this was a great step for human kind but once again the Soviets had beaten the U.S. keeping tensions high -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
A botched invasion of Cuba by exiles on the south coast who were trained by the Americans to overthrow the dictator Fidel Castro but they were outnumbered and surrendered in less than 24 hours of fighting -
Berlin Wall
created by the soviets to keep the "fascists" out of the east but also served as a way to make sure that the west couldn't undermine communism -
Cuban Missile Crisis
An intense military and political stand off between the U.S. and Russia where the Russians tried to move missiles into Cuba which is only 90 miles from the U.S. but the United States didn't allow this and they setup a blockade -
Nakita Khrushchev comes to power
created the Cuban missile crisis and started the process of de-Stalinization at home as well as mostly pursuing a policy of peace -
First Man on Moon
Due to the space race the U.S. got the first man onto the moon which was a good show of strength to the world after being beat by sputnik with the first satellite -
Vietnamization
An agreement from the U.S. president Richard Nixon that he would slowly withdraw his forces from Vietnam -
Detente
A period of improvement between the Soviets and the U.S. with both countries standing to gain if nuclear tensions were reduced and the trade was increased -
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
The government in power was having insurgencies which prompted the soviets to invade with 30,000 troops promptly toppling a the new government to give way to a soviet backed gov -
Glasnost
This means openness in Russian referring to the policy of talking about political and social issues in the Soviet Union -
Mikhail Gorbachev Comes to Power
When he came to power he had a hard time from both sides leading to the collapse of his presidency first for being to slow on reform and then for reforming at all by the communist hardliners -
INF Treaty
An abbreviation for Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force where the U.S. and Soviets promised to eliminate their intermediate and short range nuclear missiles -
German re-unification
The East German regime started to have problems in 1989 when they removed the Hungary-Austria border fence allowing thousands to flee the East -
U.S.S.R Breakup
14 of the 15 states left the soviet union Georgia being the only one to remain after Stalin's death they renounced the brutal policies of Stalin and a non-intervention policy made them crumble within a few months
