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Formation of the Eastern Bloc
The United States used its power to try to protect existing democratic governments around the world. The Soviet Union, using the influence it had gained through the war, established and enforced communist rule. This created an alliance of countries on its eastern borders that stood as a buffer between the Western world and itself, a formation that became known as the "Eastern Bloc." -
Postwar Occupation and Division of Germany
After its defeat in World War II, Germany was divided into four zones under the control of the United States, Britain, France and the former Soviet Union. The Allies would govern Germany through four occupation zones, one for each of the Four Powers--the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The presence of these millions of refugees in what remained German territory in the west was a severe hardship for the local populations and the occupation authorities. -
Why was the Cold War called the "cold" war?
There was indirect fighting on both sides. There was no physical fighting. -
Enactment of Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan nations were assisted greatly in their economic recovery. From 1948 through 1952 European economies grew at an unprecedented rate. Trade relations led to the formation of the North Atlantic alliance. Economic prosperity led by coal and steel industries helped to shape what we know now as the European Union -
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
International crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948–49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. the Allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones of Germany into a single economic unit. he Soviet representative withdrew from the Allied Control Council. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s. The Nationalists turned on the Communists, killing them or purging them from the party. -
Korean War
Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, 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. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China. 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives. -
Vietnam War
It was a direct result of the First Indochina War (1946–1954) between France, which claimed Vietnam as a colony, and the communist forces then known as Viet Minh. In 1973 a “third” Vietnam war began—a continuation, actually—between North and South Vietnam but without significant U.S. involvement. Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. -
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt led by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement. It was against the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The revolt took place between 1953 and 1959. ... He was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
On April 17, 1961, 1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. For the next two years, officials at the U.S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to push Castro from power. Finally, in April 1961, the CIA launched what its leaders believed would be the definitive strike. -
Building of the Berlin Wall
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight, on 13 August 1961. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles. He explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force to neutralize this perceived threat. -
Prague Spring
Dubcek's effort to establish “communism with a human face” was celebrated across the country, and the brief period of freedom became known as the “Prague Spring.” On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union answered Dubcek's reforms with invasion of Czechoslovakia by 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops. The Soviet Union answered Dubcek’s reforms with invasion of Czechoslovakia by 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops. -
Soviet War in Afghanistan
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. ... The war is considered part of the Cold War. At the end of December 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and immediately assumed complete military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country. -
What is a proxy war?
A war instigated by a major power that does not itself become involved. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West. The Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
The Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state. the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. A few days earlier, representatives from 11 Soviet republics met in the Kazakh city of Alma-Ata, making them no longer part of the Soviet Union.
