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The Russian Revolution
The Russian revolution was founded on violence and was to feed communism to the soviet people. Vladimir Lenin led the revolution in October 1917 and was totally ruthless. -
The Potsdam Conference
The conference was held to talk about securing political freedom and placing democratic governments throughout Europe. Stalin was against this idea and wanted to place communist governments across Europe. -
Atomic Bomb- Hiroshima/Nagasaki
The creation of the atomic bomb concerned other nations, especially the Soviet Union, because without the atomic bomb they had no power. Bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to win the war in Japan. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the decisive engagement in the first Indochina War (1946–54). After French forces occupied the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953, Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and placed heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain represented the constant conflict and physical division between democrats and communists. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was a system created by the soviet union in order to aid the countries of western Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. -
Truman Doctrine
An appeal that represented dramatic change in US foreign policy. It provided military assistance to stop the spread of communism in Europe. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood 10 were a group of individuals who defied the House of Un-American Activities Commite they were convicted of contempt of congress and sent to prison. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. -
Marshal Plan
The Marshal Plan channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery. -
Berlin Airlift
The Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves and they closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
Alger Hiss Case
The Alger Hiss Case is the accusation of an American State Department official of being a Soviet spy. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. -
Soviet Bomb Test
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. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was formed by the U.S and 11 other western nations in order to prevent the further spread of communism by the Soviet Union. -
Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). -
Korean War
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. -
Rosenburg Trial
A court case involving Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, an American couple who were executed as spies for the Soviet Union. Some have argued that the Rosenbergs were innocent victims of McCarthy era hysteria against communists or of anti Semitism -
Geneva Conference
Diplomats from several nations – including the United States, the Soviet Union, China, France and Great Britain.They all attended a conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The Geneva gathering was convened to discuss two Cold War hot spots, Berlin and Korea -
Army-Mcarthy hearings
Already infamous for his aggressive interrogations of suspected Communists, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy earned more notoriety due to these televised 1954 Congressional hearings. McCarthy had turned his investigations to army security, but the army in turn charged him with using improper influence to win preferential treatment for a former staff member Pvt. G. David Schine. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian revolution was a nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. -
U2 Incident
The u2 incident was when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. -
Berlin Wall
the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete between East and West Berlin. -
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. -
Assination of Diem
Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. -
Assassination of JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, as he was riding in an open top convertible. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
In early August 1964, two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by the North Vietnamese. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded by requesting permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the code name for an American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offense was an attempt to stir up rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to lower its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, officially known as Operation Danube, was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact nations. -
Riots of Democratic convention
The National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheater in Illinois. As President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek re-election. The purpose of the convention was to select a new presidential nominee to run as the Democratic Party's candidate for the office -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s. -
Assassination of RFK
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. -
Election of Nixon
Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president. This is eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election. -
Kent State
Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured. when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. -
NIxon Visits China
President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. Nixon’s historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
A cease-fire goes into effect at 8 a.m., Saigon time. Each side held that military operations were justified by the other side’s violations of the cease-fire. What resulted was an almost endless chain of retaliations. -
Fall of Saigon
It marked the end of the Vietnam War and the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese forces. Chaos ensued as the North Vietnamese advanced southward leading to that momentous event 40 years ago. -
Reagan elected
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to create a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. With the tension of the Cold War looming overhead, the Strategic Defense Initiative was the United States’ response to possible nuclear attacks from afar. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship. -
‘Tear down this wall’ speech
President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years later, deliriously happy East and West Germans did break down the infamous barrier between East and West Berlin -
Fall of Berlin Wall
After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere.
