-
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical hegemony 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 Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift, 1948–1949. At the end of the Second World War, U.S., British, and Soviet military forces divided and occupied Germany. Also divided into occupation zones, Berlin was located far inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of March 2016) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War. -
Soviet Union gets the Atomic Bomb
Soviet Atomic Bomb Test. On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. It came as a great shock to the United States because they were not expecting the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapon knowledge so soon. -
Communist Revolution of China
The Chinese Communist Revolution or the 1949 Revolution was the culmination of the Chinese Communist Party's drive to power since its founding in 1921 and the second part of the Chinese Civil War. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. -
Execution of the Rosenbergs
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954 -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (formally, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to NATO) was a collective defense treaty among Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. -
Launch of Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. -
The Kitchen Debate
The Kitchen Debate was a series of impromptu exchanges (through interpreters) between then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow on July 24, 1959. -
U-2 Incident
The 1960 U-2 incident happened during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Building of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989.[ -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missiles deployment in Cuba. -
SALT Treaty
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement on May 26, 1972, in Moscow. For the first time during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. -
The Miracle on Ice
The "Miracle on Ice" is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men's ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22. The United States national team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union national team, which had won the gold medal in six of the seven previous Olympic games.