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Buffer States at USSR
The USSR came out of the war with a prestigious attitude from having fought Hitler’s Germany. Although in 1945 the Communist world was limited to the Soviet Union, it rapidly spread to Central and Eastern Europe, forming a protective buffer zone for the USSR. (1945 - 1989) (Mutually Assured Destruction) -
Atomic Bomb
The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II. American bomber Enola Gay dropped a bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. (Brinkmanship) -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947. The plan was to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. (Domino Theory) -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy with a sole purpose to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain threats to Greece and Turkey. (Containment Theory) -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe. The United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. (Detente) -
Berlin Airlift
The Russians wanted Berlin and decided to close roads from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. They believed this would make it impossible for the people to get supplies and would drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. The U.S. and its allies decided to supply the city from air. (Ended on May 12, 1949) (Domino Theory) -
U.S. Aid to Greece
The extension of military and economic aid to Greece in 1947 put the United States into deep involvement in Greek affairs before American public opinion had any understanding of the difficulties that would be encountered under a policy of supporting free nations against aggression in distant parts of the world. (Containment Theory) -
U.S Aid to Turkey
Turkey was pressured by the Soviet government to allow Russian shipping to flow freely through the Turkish Straits, which connected the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The Turkish government would not submit to the Soviet Union's requests, leading to a show of naval force on the Soviets side. Turkey received $100 million in economic and military aid. (Containment Theory) -
Communist Win China
The Americans reinstated Chiang Kai-shek as ruler of China, and tried to organise a truce between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, but after the surrender of Japan a civil war broke out, which the Communists won after a struggle. On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China. The Communists took power 1949. (Domino Theory) -
NATO Established
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. (Containment Theory) -
USSR Gets Atomic Bomb
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. (Brinkmanship) -
Korean War
The Korean War (1950-1953) began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. The North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. (Domino Theory) -
Coup in Iran
The 1953 Iranian coup was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on August 19, 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom and the United States. (Containment Theory) -
Coup in Guatemala
The 1954 Guatemalan coup was an operation carried out by the U.S. CIA that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala. (Domino Theory) -
Warsaw Pact Formed
The Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a collective security alliance concluded between the United States, Canada and Western European nations in 1949. (Domino Theory) -
Beginning of troops in Vietnam
The Vietnam War was a long and costly conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. (Domino Theory) -
Suez Canal Crisis
On October 29, 1956, Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal in July, initiating the Suez Crisis. The Israelis soon were joined by French and British forces, which nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict, and damaged their relationships with the United States. In the end, the British, French and Israeli governments withdrew their troops in late 1956 and early 1957. (Domino Theory) -
Hungary (Rebellion)
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the communist government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from October 23rd, until November 10th, 1956. Though leaderless when it first began, 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. (Domino Theory) -
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into orbit on October 4th, 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. (Containment Theory) -
Sandinistas rise up in Nicaragua
The Nicaraguan Revolution encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front to violently oust the dictatorship in 1978–79, the subsequent efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990 and the Contra War which was waged between the FSLN and the Contras from 1981-1990. (Containment Theory) -
Cuba (missile crisis)
Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba. President Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary. Disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. (Mutually Assured Destruction) -
China Explodes Atomic Bomb
The People’s Republic of China joins the rank of nations with atomic bomb capability, after a successful nuclear test on October 16th, 1964. China is the fifth member of this club, joining the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. (MAD) -
Coup in Chile
Chile’s armed forces stage a coup d’état against the government of President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America. Allende retreated with his supporters to La Moneda, which was surrounded by tanks and infantry and bombed by air force jets. Allende survived the aerial attack but then apparently shot himself to death as troops stormed the burning palace. (Domino Theory) -
End of Troops in Vietnam
Direct U.S. military involvement ended on August 15th, 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. (Brinkmanship) -
Communist in Angola
The civil war was essentially a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). At the same time, the war served as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War and large-scale direct and indirect international involvement by opposing powers such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the United States was a major feature of the conflict. (Containment Theory) -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
In December 1979, the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) against a growing insurgency. The Soviet Union feared the loss of its communist proxy in Afghanistan. (Containment Theory) -
War in El Salvador
When the Junta made promises to improve living standards in the country but failed to do so, discontent with the government provoked the five main guerrilla groups country to unite in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). In 1980, El Salvador's civil war officially began. -
Evil Empire Speech
President Ronald Reagan took an aggressive stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities. Reagan depicted nuclear warfare as an extension of the "age old struggle between good and evil", while arguing that an increased nuclear inventory as well as progress in science and technology were necessary to prevent global conflict. Through these speeches, attitudes changed toward nuclear warfare. (Mutually Assured Destruction) -
Star Wars SDI
The SDI was intended to defend the United States from attack from Soviet ICBMs by intercepting the missiles at various phases of their flight. For the interception, the SDI would require extremely advanced technological systems. Among the potential components of the defense system were both space- and earth-based laser battle stations which would direct their killing beams toward moving Soviet targets. (Brinkmanship) -
Iran Contra Affair
Iranian-backed terrorists were holding hostage seven Americans (diplomats and private contractors) in Lebanon. Reagan delivered another ultimatum to his advisors: Find a way to bring those hostages home. (Deterrence) -
Fall of Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. (Containment Theory) -
Fall of the USSR
Lithuania proclaims its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost led Lithuania to reassert its identity, and on March 11, 1990, formal independence was proclaimed.(Domino Theory)
