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Truman Approves H-Bomb
President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb (H-Bomb). This weapon was theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. -
McCarthyism
Joe McCarthy begins communist witch-hunt and loyalty tests. He continued to investigate for over two years, questioning numerous government departments and the panic arising from the witch-hunts and fear of communism became know as McCarthyism. -
Korean War begins
Stalin supports North Korea who invades South Korea equipped with Soviet weapons; this starts war. 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. -
Federal Civil Defense Administration established
Perhaps one of the most common misconceptions among Americans is that if a major wide-scale nuclear, biological or chemical disaster strikes, chances of survival would be extremely low. In an attempt to protect American civilians, this civil defense campaign emphasized the use of fallout shelters. -
British A-bomb
Britain developed its own atom bomb to remain a great power and avoid complete dependence on the United States. By the time the bomb was ready for testing, the Churchill government was in power. -
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Korean War Ends
After three years of a bloody and frustrating war, the United States, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea agree to an armistice, bringing the Korean War to an end. -
Atoms for Peace Speech
Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Speech
Atoms for Peace program supplied equipment and information to schools, hospitals, and research institutions within the U.S. and throughout the world. -
H-Bomb Castle-Bravo Test
Castle-Bravo marks one of the most serious nuclear fallout incidents in history. Due to a design error, the explosion reached a yield of 15 megatons, making it two and a half times larger than expected and more than 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. This led to radioactive fallout around its location. -
KGB Established
KGB was the foreign intelligence and domestic security agency of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era the KGB’s responsibilities included the protection of the country’s political leadership, the supervision of border troops, and the general surveillance of the population. -
Geneva Conference
In an effort to resolve several problems in Asia, including the war between the French and Vietnamese nationalists in Indochina, representatives from the world’s powers meet in Geneva. The conference marked a turning point in the United States’ involvement in Vietnam by them dividing Vietnam by the 17th parrallel. -
Warsaw Pact
This pact was a political and military alliance between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. These countries signed this treaty to establish a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Suez Canal Crisis
The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the British and French-owned Suez Canal. Soon after, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone and nationilized the canal. -
Russian ICBM
The Soviets launched their first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which is a guided ballistic missile, primarily designed for nuclear weapons. This launch started the nuclear arms race betweenthe Soviets and the United States. -
Sputnik II
The USSR stunned the world with a new space sensation -- the launch of Sputnik-2 carrying a dog onboard (Laika died in space). The Space Age had barely started and the USSR was in the led. -
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the NASA program that put the first American astronauts in space. NASA learned a lot from Project Mercury like how the agency could put astronauts in orbit around Earth and learned how those astronauts could live and work in space. -
Fidel Castro Dictatorship
Cuban leader Fidel Castro (1926-) established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Castro’s Cuba also had a highly antagonistic relationship with the United States -
The Kitchen Debate
During the grand opening ceremony of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev engage in a heated debate about capitalism and communism in the middle of a model kitchen set up for the fair. The so-called “kitchen debate” became one of the most famous episodes of the Cold War. -
U-2 Spy Incident
An international diplomatic crisis erupted when the USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. CIA had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. -
Bay of Pigs Invasoin
Castro’s regime was considered such a threat to U.S. interests that secret American operatives even tried to have him assassinated.This led to the Bay of PIgs but became a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group. -
Construction of the Berlin Wall
West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address, President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if needed. -
President Kennedy Assassinated
President J.F.K was assainated by Lee Harvey Oswald who was suspected of being a communist. These speculations arose from him trying to escape to the Soviet Union after the assasination took place. This dramatically raised tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. -
Gulf of Tokin Incident
The U.S. destroyer Maddox exchanged shots with North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. By the end of the day, President Lyndon B. Johnson had ordered retaliatory air strikes, and by late 1965 some 180,000 American troops were on the ground. -
Vietnam War
U.S. announcement of dispatching of 200,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam. This starts the Vietnam War with the involvement of the U.S. -
Soviets Invade Czechoslovakia
Approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”. Pro-Soviet communists seized control of Czechoslovakia’s democratic government -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the first spaceflight that landed humans on the Moon. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface. -
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Published at a time when support for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was steadily eroding, the Pentagon Papers confirmed many people’s suspicions about the active role the U.S. government had taken in building up the conflict. -
SALT signed
Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement 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. -
Fall of Saigon
The South Vietnamese forces had collapsed under the rapid advancement of the North Vietnamese. U.S. troops withdrew and Saigon fell to communist takeover from North Vietnanm.
