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berlin blockade
Was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
China goes red
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
Korean War begins
On June 25, 1950, the 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. -
United States tests first Hydrogen bomb
the United States conducted its first nuclear test of a fusion device, or “hydrogen bomb,” at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. ... But after the Soviets successfully detonated an atomic bomb in 1949, President Harry S. Truman ordered the creation of a hydrogen bomb project. -
Dwight Eisenhower is elected
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson, ending a string of Democratic Party wins that stretched back to 1932. -
NATO formed
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Sputnik Launched
When the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
Nikita Khrushchev
Was a Soviet statesman who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -
President Kennedy is elected
He becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. -
Russians send the first man into space
Aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. -
Bay of pigs invasion fails
ifty years ago, shortly before midnight on 16 April 1961, a group of some 1,500 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the CIA launched an ill-fated invasion of Cuba from the sea in the Bay of Pigs. The plan was to overthrow Fidel Castro and his revolution. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
During the early years of the Cold War, 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. It was thrown up overnight. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. -
Tet offensive
Officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the NLF, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. -
Dr. King ¨i have a dream¨ speech
A public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. -
John F. Kennedy is assassinated
The 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza -
The beatles arrive in the United States
An estimated four thousand Beatles' fans were present as Pan Am Flight 101 left Heathrow Airport. Among the passengers were the Beatles, on their first trip to the United States as a band, with their entourage of photographers and journalists, and Phil Spector. -
China explodes atomic bomb
After a successful nuclear test China is the fifth member of this exclusive club, joining the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France -
First NFL super bowl
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to supreme court
President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. -
Martin Luther king jr assassination
Martin Luther King Jr., American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. -
Robert Kennedy assassination
Was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized. -
Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
American astronauts land on the moon
Buzz Aldrin salutes the deployed United States flag during the EVA on the lunar surface. Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle. -
woodstock concert
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock— was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. -
Watergate buglaries
There were 5 burglars arrested on June 17, 1972 at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. From left to right, the burglars were: James W. McCord – a security co-ordinator for the Republican National Committee and the Committee for the Re-election of the President. -
Paris peace accords end the vietnam war
The Paris Peace Accords, officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. -
President Nixon resigns
The Watergate scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support. He resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
A diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days -
Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known collectively as the mujahideen, as well as smaller Maoist groups. -
President Reagan is shot
President Ronald Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. -
Mikhael Gorbachev assumes control in the soviet union
Pushed Soviet Union on a new course. -
Chernobyl Disaster
Also referred to as the Chernobyl accident, was a catastrophic nuclear accident. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.
