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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference had helped to end World War II. -
Potsdam Conference
They confirmed plans to disarm and demilitarize Germany. -
Creation of the United Nations
Existence by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories. -
Creation of the Iron Curtain/Warsaw Pact
These borders were formed in the years after World War II, as Soviet-controlled regimes in the East sought to tighten control and prevent both emigration and infiltration. -
Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman presented this address before a joint session of Congress. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of the United States, Great Britain and France to travel to their respective sectors of the city of Berlin. -
Creation of NATO
The Washington Treaty or North Atlantic Treaty forms the basis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. -
Korean War
The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War may have defined 1960s and 1970s America, but it lasted 10 years by the most widely accepted metric. -
1960 U2 Incident
An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet air space. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A spy plane was secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. -
Soviet-Afghan War
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall is began to thaw across Eastern Europe. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed.
