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Espionage - Igor Gouzenko
Igor worked in the Russian Legislative building in Ottawa but he was really a KGB agent. Than on September 5th he defected to the West and gave the Britain’s some very valuable information that led to the capture of 22 local agents and 15 Soviet spies. He then lived in Ontario under a cover name and died June 25th, 1982. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift was started when the Soviets demanded that any train shipment going through Soviet Germany be searched. When the Trizone refused all supplies that were being shipped by train or car was stopped. This caused some panic because they were already below the daily ration and soon they would be faced with starvation. So the US and Canada started making air drops with food and any other supplies they might need. In total there was 270, 000 flights. -
Continental Defense
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an organization of states bound by a treaty to defend each other. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is a joint military force organized to defend North America against Communist Russia. The Avro Arrow was a Canadian designed aircraft in order to help defend North America. Finally DEW line (Distant Early Warning) was a series of radar instillations to give advance warning of an attack. -
Korean War
): Relations became strained between North and South Korea and on June 25th North Korea troops infiltrated the South. Within nine days South Korea had the help of the US and 15 other nations. The North Korean’s were ahead for most of the war until the South Koreans captured Pyongyang (capital of North Korea). Just before North Korea fell Communist China joined their forces and pushed back against South Korea. After many months of heavy fighting two forces formed a truce and ended the war. -
Role in Common Wealth
The Colombo Plan was a role in common wealth because it made Cooperative Economic Development in Southern and Southeastern Asia. -
Suez Crisis
The crisis began when Egyptian President Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company. With Nasser controlling the company, France and Britain felt threatened so their leaders went to Israel and supported their attack. When the Israeli forces broke into Egypt, France and Britain started the bombing and split their relations with the US. Canada saw this rift and Pearson proposed the world’s first peacekeeping force. The peacekeeping troops entered Egypt with the Soviets and enemy forces left. -
International Politics, Hungary Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution started off as a simple student protest but people quickly joined into the fight. Thousands of people went against the State Security Police. Their government fell and things easily got out of hand; even prisoners were set free. When the new government was put into power they promised free elections once again being held in Hungary. -
Berlin Wall (Rise and Fall)
The point of the Berlin wall was to keep East and West Germany separated. When the wall was first made it was done in the dead of night, soldiers went through East Germany into West Germany and started tearing up the street and getting the wall space ready, by the time the job was finished the wall stretched 100 miles. Then on November 9th 1989 the wall was taken down and the divide between West and East Germany was broken. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Throughout the cold war this was the event that came closest to a nuclear war but President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev stopped the event from happening. The way that the President and Premier evaded the nuclear war was by having negotiations that lasted through 14 days and made a mutual agreement that if the Soviet Union got rid of their missiles that the US would not fire there missiles at them. -
Nuclear Questions (Bomarc Missle Crisis and SALT Agreement)
This a period where it is a great debate whether nuclear war heads will be allowed in Canada. Throughout the 1960s NORAD tried to convince Canada to have the nuclear war heads but they were not accepted until the Liberals were voted in again and Pearson gave them the go ahead. The SALT agreement was 3 rounds of negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union to slow the rate of production of missiles and nuclear materials. -
Peacekeeping Missions (Cyprus and Congo)
The peacekeeping missions in Cyprus were put together by the Security Council to prevent the fighting between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. The Congo peacekeeping missions were to monitor the peace processes towards the end of the second Congo War. -
Summit Series
The summit series was the first hockey tournament between the Soviets and the NHL in Canada. There were 8 games held and Canada won winning 4 games against the Soviets 3 with one game declared as a tie. -
Afghanistan 1980s
Around the beginning of 1980 was when the Afghanistan people joined the Soviet war. Throughout the 1980s the United Nations were concerned about many things, manly the lack of human rights throughout Afghanistan due to the war. Between 1986 and 1987 there government leader's change and the war starts to die down as the USSR withdraws its troops from Afghanistan and the war comes to a complete close 1989. -
Olympics and Politics
The summer Olympics were boycott due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That year the summer Olympics were to be held in Moscow but with the miniature war between Afghanistan and the Soviets Jimmy Carter was unwilling to send any Olympic members to the summer games. -
US Star Wars
Is the event where President Ronald Reagan came up with the idea of laser beams shooting enemy missiles out of the air. The way he intended to do this was to have spy satellites circling the Earth and when they detected any nuclear missiles they were to determine each missiles position and speed and send a message back to a command center on Earth. As they receive the information they program their laser guns to aim at the missiles and blow them up before reaching their destination. -
Gorbachev
Gorbachev was the Russia’s last Communist leader. As their leader he brought the country closer to having a democracy. He did this by opening the gap between the government and the people. Unlike most leaders he wanted to know what the people thought. He was their ruler from 1985 to 1991.
