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Second Red Scare
The Second Red Scare refers to the time from the late 40s to 50s in which the fear of communism was entering american politics, culture, and society. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference (Crimea Conference) was a WW2 meeting of the heads of governments of the US, UK, and USSR to discuss the post war reorganization of Germany and Europe. -
Potsdam Conference
At the Potsdam Conference, they confirmed plans to disarm and demilitarize Germany, which would divide it into 4 Allied occupation zones controlled by the US, Great Britain, France, and USSR. -
Creation of the United Nations
As WW2 came to an end, 50 countries gather together to make a new international organization, called the United Nations, hoping to prevent another world war. -
Truman Doctrine
With this Doctrine, President Truman established that the US would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from authoritarian forces, like in Greece and Turkey at this time. -
Creation of NATO
The foundations of NATO were officially laid on April 4th, 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. -
Korean War
The Korean War began on June 25th, 1950, when the Northern Korean Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated attack to try to secure the Korean Peninsula and incorporate it to the USSR, China, and N. Korea's communist bloc. -
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt led by Fidel Castro that toppled the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US. -
Space Race
The Space Race was between the US and the Soviet Union to see who could develop aerospace capabilities, artificial satellites, unmanned space probes, and human spaceflight first. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly conflict between the communist government of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, with the US as a principal ally. -
1960 U2 incident
This confrontation,between the US and the Soviet Union, began with the shooting down of a US U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the US, USSR, the UK, and France. The Soviets claimed the flight was an aggressive act made by the US. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major confrontation in 1962 that brought the US and the USSR close to war over the presence of soviet nuclear ballistic missiles being constructed in Cuba. -
Soviet-Afghan War
This was an armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979-1989 between the Soviet Union, the DRA, and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen, foreign fighters, and smaller groups of anti-soviet Maoists. -
Chernobyl Disaster
The Chernobyl Accident was due to an attempt on a poorly designed experiment performed by inadequately trained personnel. The resulting steam explosion and fires released radioactive reactor core into the environment. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
As the Cold War began to diminish in Eastern Europe, the spokesperson for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in the city's relations with the West. Starting that night, citizens were free to cross the country's borders.
