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Korean War
There was a cold war conflict within the Korean War. United States were helping South Korea while the Soviet Union was aiding North Korea. -
Joseph McCarthy
Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that communists have infiltrated the CIA and the atomic weapons industry. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact is the name commonly given to the treaty between Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union, which was signed in Poland in 1955 and was officially called 'The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance'. -
Hungarian Revolution
Hungarians revolt against the Soviet dominated government. They are crushed by the Soviet military, which reinstates a Communist government. -
The Berlin Wall constructed
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Soviets have secretly been installing military bases. Kennedy orders a "quarantine" (a naval blockade) of the island that intensifies the crisis and brings the US and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war. In the end, both sides reach a compromise. -
John F. Kennedy is assassinated
John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. There has been some speculation over whether communist countries or even CIA were involved in the assassination, but those theories remain controversial. Kennedy's vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President of the United States. -
Gulf of Tonkin
US President Lyndon B. Johnson claims that North Vietnamese naval vessels had fired on two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident leads to the open involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. -
Dispatching of U.S. troops to Vietnam
US military build up to defend South Vietnam. North Vietnam has also committed its forces in the war. US begins sustained bombing of North Vietnam. -
Soviet troops crush Czechoslovakia revolt
Prague Spring Reforms in Communist Czechoslovakia result in Warsaw Pact intervention to crush them. -
President Nixon extends Vietnam War
President Nixon extends Vietnam War to Cambodia. United States' aid to Cambodia to support the Lon Nol regime begins -
North Vietnam wins the war in South Vietnam
The South Vietnam regime falls with the surrender of Saigon and the two countries are united under a Communist government. -
Signing of SALT II
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, sign the SALT II agreement, outlining limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons -
Sovient invasion in Afghanistan
The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to oust Hafizullah Amin, resulting in the end of Détente. -
Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan
February 2: Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. -
End of the Cold War
US President George H. W. Bush, after receiving a phone call from Boris Yeltsin, delivers a Christmas Day speech acknowledging the end of the Cold War.
