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United Nations (UN) formed
The United Nations (UN) was created at the end of World War II as an international peacekeeping organization and a forum for resolving conflicts between nations. The UN replaced the ineffective League of Nations, which had failed to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War. -
Germany Divided
After the Potsdam conference, Germany was divided into four occupied zones: Great Britain in the northwest, France in the southwest, the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the east. Berlin, the capital city situated in Soviet territory, was also divided into four occupied zones. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, and further developed on July 4, 1948, when he pledged to contain threats in Greece and Turkey. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative passed in 1948 to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $12 billion (nearly $100 billion in 2018 US dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
Berlin airlift
The 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 -
NATO formed
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Execution
On this day in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. -
Warsaw pact formed
The Warsaw Treaty Organization, 1955. The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. -
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957, orbiting for three weeks before its batteries died, then silently for two more months before falling back into the atmosphere.
