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Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine grew out of George Kennan’s 1946 ‘long telegram’ which argued that the US should follow a policy of ‘containment’ to stop Russian expansion. Then, in February 1947, the British announced that they were withdrawing their soldiers from Greece. On 12 March 1947, Truman warned Congress that, without help, Greece would fall to Communism – and that Turkey and other countries would follow. He said that the Cold War was a choice between freedom and oppression and that American -
Soviets explode first atomic bomb
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name "First Lightning." In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. -
Korean War begins
Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. Af -
Rosenberg executions
Julius was arrested in July 1950, and Ethel in August of that same year, on the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Specifically, they were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial in March 1951 they were convicted. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death. The pair was taken to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, to await executi -
1954: March -- KGB established
more commonly known by its transliteration "KGB" (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB), was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its collapse in 1991. The committee was a direct successor of such preceding agencies as Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", acting as internal security, intelligence, and secret police. -
Vietnam split at 17th parallel
The 17th parallel division between North and South Vietnam was the result of a Chinese proposal at the Geneva Confernce of 1954 which ended the French war in Vietnam. China did not want a strong, unified Vietnam on its southern border and easily convinced the great powers to go along with their proposal. Ho Chi Minh was dependent on Chinese aid and had to go along. Elections were scheduled for 1956, but South Vietnam, which did not sign the Geneva Accord, refused to participate. -
1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it -
Sputnik launched into orbit
Sputnik was only 23 inches in diameter but weighed about 184 pounds.
At 500 miles up, at the speed of 18,000 miles an hour, Sputnik circled the globe every 96 minutes, making 1,440 orbits around the Earth before beginning its rentry.
Sputnik probably broke up somewhere above the western United States. A man in Encino, CA, woke up one morning and noticed something glowing in his backyard. Upon inspection, it proved to be plastic tubing of the type used in Sputnik. No one has been able to prove -
Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro
established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades, until handing off power to his younger brother Raúl in 2008. During that time, Castro’s regime was successful in reducing illiteracy, stamping out racism and improving public health care, but was widely criticized for stifling economic and political freedoms. Castro’s Cuba also had a highly antagonistic r -
Berlin Wall Built
After the 2nd world war, Germany was seperated into an eastern (GDR) and a western (BRD) country, which also included a separation of Berlin according to the divisions (West Berlin as british, french and american – East Berlin as the russian sector). So the socialistic regime in the east wanted to “protect” its national border from the capitalistic influence from West Berlin by building this Wall as an “anti-fascistic barricade”.
