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NATO
In 1949, Communist expansion made the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviet Union and its Communist nations in Eastern Europe found a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact. The alignment of every European nation into one of the two opposing camps formed the political division of the European continent that had taken place ever since World War two. -
The Iron Curtain
In 1946 Western Churchill delivered the speech in the United States. He was concerned about the Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain was the division between Capitalist Western Europe and Communist Eastern Europe. He wanted to America to take a bigger role in Soviet aggression. -
Truman Doctrine
In 1947 a speech to a joint session of Congress, President Truman had asked for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to prevent communist domination of the two nations. Historians have cited Truman’s address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the declaration of the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, was a U.S. program that had aid for Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It had started in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help rebuild efforts on the continent. The brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named was crafted as a four-year plan to construct cities and more again. -
Berlin Airlift
Berlin was located deep in the Soviet zone, but was also divided into four sections. In June 1948, the Russians who wanted Berlin all for themselves closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-Germany into western-occupied Berlin. They believed it would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any supplies. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade in 1948 was when the Soviet Union tried to limit France, Great Britain, and United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin. Later, the western powers instituted an airlift that lasted about a year and delivered supplies and relief to West Berlin. Three years after the end of World War II, the blockade was the first major clash of the Cold War. -
Communist Take Over China
On October 1, 1949 the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation for People’s Republic of China. The announcement ended the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party which broke, following World War II. -
Korean War
In June 25,1950 the Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. It started when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. At the end of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea had been split into two sovereign states. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War´s conflict was between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States had divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975. -
Revolt in Hungary
In 1956 protesters had went to the streets wanting a more democratic political system and freedom from the soviets. Then, the communist official party had called up Imre. On November 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush, once and for all, the national uprising. Vicious street fights started to break out. The Soviet action had people in the West stunned. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had pledged a retreat from the Stalinist policies and repression of the past. -
Sputnik
Sputnik was a series of 10 artificial Earth satellites who was launched by the Soviet Union beginning on Oct. 4, 1957. The first satellite launched by man, was a 83.6-kg capsule. Sputnik left an Earth orbit with an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 940 km and a perigee (nearest point) of 230 km.(143 miles). Then it fell back and burned in the Earth’s atmosphere. -
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward happened when Mao Zedong’s impatience for industrial and manufacturing growth. Even though the Five Year Plan had succeeded, Mao was suspicious of Soviet models of economic development. Instead, Mao favored a shift in economic policy that would continue industrialization. The Great Leap Forward had two goals: to create an industrialized economy in order to ‘catch up’ with the West; and to make China a great society, History records the Great Leap Forward as a disaster. -
Apollo Program
NASA's Apollo Program consisted of 17 missions in the 1960s and 1970s to send the first humans to the moon.The program used the mighty Saturn V rocket to launch three astronauts on Apollo spacecraft. Later missions had included a Lunar Module. It was NASA's Apollo 11 mission in 1969 that landed the first astronauts on the moon while a third remained in orbit. NASA's final Apollo moon mission was Apollo 17 in 1972. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict.What happened during this crisis was calculations and miscalculations as well as direct and secret communications and miscommunications between the two sides. -
Cultural Revolution
In 1966 Mao Zedong called for a Cultural Revolution so he can reaffirm his authority over the Chinese government. Once Mao started believing that the current communist leaders were taking the party and china, Mao went the wrong direction and called the Nations youth. The Cultural Revolution continued in different ways until Mao’s death in 1976. -
Revolt in Czechoslovakia
On the night of August 20, 1968,200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring. A brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with demonstrations and other non-violent tricks, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks. The liberal reforms of First Secretary Alexander Dubcek were repealed and “normalization” began under Gustav Husak.
