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detente
Détente is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions. -
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg convicted and executed
In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917. Members of the communist party, the Rosenbergs were convicted of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in 1945. -
McCarthyism
[The American Heritage Dictionary gives the definition of McCarthyism as: 1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition.] -
The United Nation was created
The Senate approved the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. The United Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified the Charter. -
The cold war began
The Cold War began after the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, when the uneasy alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other started to fall apart -
The 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. -
The berlin airlift
Berlin blockade, international crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948–49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, -
The marshall plan
On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
Nato was created
The foundations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were officially laid down on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty -
China becomes communist
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
The korean war began
After five years of simmering tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the Northern Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, the line dividing communist North Korea from the non-communist Republic -
Alger hiss convicted
A federal grand jury indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury. After a mistrial due to a hung jury, Hiss was tried a second time, and in January 1950 he was found guilty and received two concurrent five-year sentences, of which he eventually served three and a half years. -
The korean war ended
On July 27, 1953, seven months after President Eisenhower's inauguration as the 34th President of the United States, an armistice was signed, ending organized combat operations and leaving the Korean Peninsula divided much as it had been since the close of World War II at the 38th parallel. The Korean U.N. -
the warsaw pact was created
Formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance, the Warsaw Pact was created on 14 May 1955, immediately after the accession of West Germany to the Alliance. -
The U-2 incident
U-2 Incident, (1960), confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane -
The berlin wall was built
On the night of August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers laid down more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin. -
The bay of pig invasion
ay of Pigs invasion, (April 17, 1961), abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), or Playa Girón (Girón Beach) to Cubans, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. -
The cuban missile crisis
Cuban missile crisis, (October 1962), major confrontation that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war -
The vietnam war began
April 1, 1965. Shortly after Operation Rolling Thunder began in 1965, President Johnson committed the first U.S. ground troops to the Vietnam War. -
vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops -
ping pong diplomacy
Ping-pong diplomacy was successful and resulted in opening the U.S.-PRC relationship, leading the U.S. to lift the embargo against China on June 10, 1971. On February 28, 1972, during President Nixon and Henry Kissinger's visit to Shanghai, the Shanghai Communiqué was issued between the U.S. and the PRC. -
The fall of saigon
The fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture -
Glasnost and perestroika
Perestroika (/ˌpɛrəˈstrɔɪkə/; Russian: перестройка) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. -
The Berlin wall came down
The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. -
The cold war ended
In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, and the revolutionary wave in East Europe replaced communist-backed governments and Soviet allies. At the Malta summit in December 1989, Gorbachev and US President George H.W. Bush declared the end of the Cold War.