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Creation of the United Nations
As World War II was about to end in 1945, nations were in ruins, and the world wanted peace. Representatives of 50 countries gathered at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, California from 25 April to 26 June 1945. -
Second Red Scare
The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government. -
Truman doctrine
With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
Berlin Blockade
the Soviet leader, imposed the Berlin Blockade from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949, cutting off all land and river transit between West Berlin and West Germany. The Western Allies responded with a massive airlift to come to West Berlin's aid. -
Creation of NATO
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. -
korean war
North Korea, supported by the Soviet Union, invaded the south on the 25 June 1950, which was supported by the United States. The three-year war was exceptionally bloody and led to the deaths of 3 million people and tens of thousands of casualties. -
Creation of the Iron Curtain/Warsaw Pact
the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc. The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. -
space race
The competition began on 2 August 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement of their similar intent to launch artificial satellites. The space race has its origins in the nuclear arms race between the two nations following the Second World War. -
Vietnam war
North Vietnam wanted to reunite the country under Communism, its political and economic system. South Vietnam fought to keep this from happening. The United States helped South Vietnam, but North Vietnam won the war in 1975. Soon Vietnam was a united, Communist country. -
suez crisis
The Suez Crisis of 1956, in which the Egyptian Government seized control of the Suez Canal from the British and French owned company that managed it, had important consequences for U.S. relations with both Middle Eastern countries and European allies. -
berlin crisis
East German police and military units sealed off all arteries leading to West Berlin. The communists pulled up train tracks and roads, erected barriers topped with barbed wire, completely isolating the Western sectors and preventing East Germans from escaping to the West. -
Cuban missile crisis
After extensive consultation with his foreign policy and military advisers, Kennedy blockaded Cuba on October 22, 1962. The two sides stood on the brink of nuclear war, but Khrushchev capitulated six days later and the missiles were dismantled. In return, Kennedy disbanded its own missile sites in Turkey. -
chernobyl disaster
On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere -
fall of berlin wall
It was on 9 November 1989, five days after half a million people gathered in East Berlin in a mass protest, that the Berlin Wall dividing communist East Germany from West Germany crumbled. East German leaders had tried to calm mounting protests by loosening the borders, making travel easier for East Germans -
fall of soviet union
On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.