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Russian Revolution
Mar 8, 1917 – Nov 7, 1917
A pair of wars that caused the collapse of the Russian government and started the Soviet Union. This event marked the beginning of the Russian Civil War. -
Potsdam Conference
Jul 17, 1945 – Aug 2, 1945
A conference attended by Joseph Stalin, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill to administer Germany. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of postwar order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of wars. -
Atomic Bombs - Hiroshima/Nagasaki
August 6 and August 9, 1945
During the end of World War ll, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They remain the only use of nuclear weapons in the history of warfare. -
Iron Curtain
The name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas after World War ll. On the East were countries influenced by or connected to the Soviet Union. The west were countries that were allied to the United States or neutral. -
The Hollywood Ten
Ten individuals that were cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted after refusing to answer questions about their alleged involvement with the Communist Party. These people were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ortiz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. -
Truman Doctrine
Announced on March 12 1947, but further developed on July 12, 1948. It was a foreign policy whose purpose was to stop the expansion of the Soviet Union. It implied American support for other nations threatened by Soviet communism. It became the foundation of American foreign policy -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid the people of Western Europe in rebuilding the economy after World War ll. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of Communism. -
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
(June 24 1948- May 12 1949)
The Berlin blockade was when the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin. The Berlin airlift was done to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin. -
NATO
The National Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance between 29 North American and European Countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. -
Soviet Bomb Test
The first Soviet bomb test was the RDS-1. It was code named by the Americans Joe-1 after Joseph Stalin -
Korean War
(June 25, 1950- July 27, 1953)
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. It was started when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashing along the border. The Chinese later entered the war when the South reached the Yalu river (the river that borders North Korea and China). The war ended when a armistice was signed -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Eisenhower's Massive Retaliation Policy
Massive retaliation is a nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack. In the event of an attack from an aggressor, a state would massively retaliate by using a force disproportionate to the size of the attack.
The aim of massive retaliation is to deter another state from initially attacking. -
Warsaw Pact
A treaty signed between the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO. It is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe. -
The Vietnam War
(November 1, 1955- April 30, 1975)
A war between the North Vietnamese, supported by the Soviet Union and other communist allies, and the South Vietnamese, supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies. The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war by some US perspectives. -
Hungarian Revolution
(October 23- November 10 1956)
A nationwide revolt against the Marxist-Leninist government of the Hungarians people's republic and it's Soviet imposed policies. It was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR's forces drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II. -
Khrushchev Takes Over
Stalin's death in 1953 triggered a power struggle, from which Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. -
U2 Incident
A United States U2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Union while it was spying. The US authorities acknowledged the incident as the loss of a civilian weather research aircraft operated by NASA, but were forced to admit the mission's true purpose when a few days later the Soviet government produced the captured pilot and parts of the U-2's surveillance equipment, including photographs of Soviet military bases taken during the mission. The pilot was sentenced to three years in prison. -
Berlin Wall
(August 13, 1961- November 1989)
A guarded barrier that physically and and ideologically divided Berlin. It separated communism from capitalism. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion on Cuba -
Cuban Missile Crisis
(October 16-28 1962)
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent 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. -
Detente
Detente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. In the context of the Cold War, the lessening of tensions between the East and West, along with domestic reform in the Soviet Union, worked together to achieve the end of communism in Eastern Europe and eventually the Soviet Union altogether. -
Reagan Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to overwhelm the global influence of the Soviet Union in an attempt to end the Cold War. It also made an effort to support people who were against communism. -
Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech
"Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
When the Berlin wall was destroyed and Germany was whole again
