Cold War timeline By cweaver104 May 13, 1945 WWII ends in Europe Mar 23, 1947 Truman Doctrine anounced Jun 18, 1948 Berlin Air LIft begins Apr 25, 1949 NATO was established Aug 9, 1949 Soviet Union explodes first atomic bomb Oct 15, 1949 Communists win Chinese Civil War Jun 20, 1950 U.S and U.N nations fight North Korea Jul 4, 1953 Korean war ended Aug 15, 1953 U.S coup overthrows Iranian government Aug 17, 1954 U.S sponsered coup overthrows Iranian government Sep 26, 1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization is formed May 15, 1955 Warsaw pact formed Oct 10, 1956 Red Army crushes Hugrain Revolution Oct 18, 1957 Sovits launch first man made satelite Feb 27, 1959 Fidel Castro installs communist power in Cuba Aug 17, 1961 East Germany Builds Berlin Wall Oct 2, 1962 Cuban missle crisis Oct 30, 1964 China explodes first atomic bomb Aug 14, 1965 U.S sends troops into Vietnam Aug 11, 1968 Soviet Red Army crushes Czech Republic Feb 28, 1972 President Nixon visits China Apr 19, 1975 South Vietnam falls to Communist forces Jan 24, 1979 U.S. and China establish diplomatic relations Dec 9, 1983 U.S. invades Grenada. Mar 22, 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union, the following year he declares glasnost and perestroika May 29, 1989 Led by university students, over one million Chinese in Tiananmen Square demand reforms by the Chinese Communist government Sep 13, 1989 Solidarity forms The first post-war non-Communist government in Poland Oct 20, 1989 Hungary declares a non-Communist government Nov 30, 1989 East Germany allows unrestricted migration to West Germany Dec 23, 1989 Berlin Wall is demolished May 12, 1990 George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev agree to the reunification of Germany Dec 5, 1991 The Soviet Union is abolished. Boris Yeltsin becomes President of Russia