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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference was a meeting of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt; they agreed to require Germany’s unconditional surrender and also to set up the conquered nation into four zones that were going to be run by their three countries and France. -
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The Cold War
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U.S. drops first A-bomb
On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. -
End of WWII
Heavy casualties sustained at Iwo Jima, and Okinawa led Truman to authorize the use of the atomic bombon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 10, the Japanese government declared they would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. -
Churchill delivers Iron Curtain Speech
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union's policies in Europe and declares, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." The Iron Curtain was the conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II to the end of the Cold War. -
NATO is formed
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the members to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force; it was the communist counteraction to NATO -
Sputnik 1
Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I the world's first artificial satellite. The Sputnik launch was a single event that marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. -
US spy plane shot down
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. The Soviets convicted Powers on espionage, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. However, after serving less than two years, he was released in exchange for a captured Soviet agent in the first-ever U.S.-USSR “spy swap.” The U-2 spy plane caused tenstion for the US and USSR during the Cold War. -
Bay of Pigs
On April 17, the Cuban exile brigade began its invasion at an isolated spot on the island’s southern shore known as the Bay of Pigs; the plan was to destroy Castro’s air force, making it impossible for his military to resist the invaders. Almost immediately, the invasion was a disaster, and it wasn't before long until Castro’s troops had pinned them on the beach, and the exiles surrendered after less than a day of fighting. -
Construction of the Berlin Wall
In an effort to stop refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany began building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. -
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 in Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. Disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to not invade Cuba. -
Kennedy Assassination
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
Apollo 11 wins Space race
On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface; he famously called the moment “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957 -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
As the Cold War started to come to an end 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 were free to cross the country’s borders. East and West Berliners flocked to the wall; by midnight, they flooded through the checkpoints. -
End of the USSR anf The Cold War
By December 25 many countries had left the Soviet Union, causing it to come to an end for Russia. After the USSR had fallen, The Cold War finally came to a close after a long 45 years.
