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Death of Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Hitler killed himself by gunshot in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. -
Civil War in Greece
was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek government army, backed by the United Kingdom and the United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece, the military branch of the Greek Communist Party, backed by Yugoslavia and Albania -
Truman Doctrine Speech
The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress -
Marshall Plan is announced
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of ‘restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.’ The plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University -
Berlin Airlift
the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
Creation of NATO
The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Soviets test an atomic bomb
the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test, code-named 'RDS-1', at the Semipalatinsk test site in modern-day Kazakhstan. The device had a yield of 22 kilotons. -
Korean War begins
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. -
KGB Established
Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. -
Creation of Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance established between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. -
Partitioning of Germany
Germany was divided into four zones under the control of the United States, Britain, France and the former Soviet Union. The division, nevertheless, was provisional.
