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THE IRON CURTAIN
(1945-1991) It was an imaginary line between the two blocks in Europe. It ran from the mouth of the Elbe River to the shores of the Adriatic Sea. -
THE YALTA CONFERENCE
The Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) agreed that Europe would be politically rebuilt with democratic governments. This was the beginning of the Cold War thanks to the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union because they adopted different political and economic systems. -
GREECE CONFLICT
(1946-1950) The conservatives and the armed forces of the monarchical government, supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, clashed against the Greek Communists and members of the anti-fascist resistance organization. -
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
(19947-1956). This doctrine was proclaimed by the US president Harry Thuman. It denounced the creation of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, and offered help to the people threatened by the spread of communism. -
THE CREATION OF NATO
It was an organisation which organised mutual assistance among its members trhough the Marshall Plan in 1947. It was formed by 30 North American and European countries approximately like Brussels and Belgium. -
THE KOREAN WAR
(1950-1953). Korea was divided into two zones: one of Soviet influence in the North, in which a communist regime was imposed; and other of western influence in the South. These two zones will fight each other and in the end there wasn't winner, so Korea now is divided in two. -
THE "SPUTNIK"
(1953-1960). It was a crisis in american response to the Soviet Union's successful Sputnik program. This was the launch of the first artificial satellite. Americans were afraid of the intentions of the USSR despite being a global powerfull in space technology and missile development. This program inspired the Space Race to launch the first human into space and the landing of the first man on the moon through the Apollo Program. -
THE VIETNAM WAR
(1955-1975). It was a confrontation between North and South Vietnam. They were involved by the United States, who supported South Vietnam (with a communist regime), and the Soviet Union, which supported North Vietnam (with a capitalist regime). In 1973, the United States government accepted the Paris Agreement, which established the end of the war. Finally, the victory was for the North Vietnam and its allies. -
THE CREATION OF WARSAW PACT
It was a military alliance made up of eight European socialist countries, created to counter the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany and its entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Republic of Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the USSR. -
HUNGARY CONFLICT
The hungarian poblation protested against the communist regime and demanded freedom from the Soviets. A rebellion was declared against the Soviet occupation army, causing many riots in the streets. The first came when a huge crowd of unarmed Hungarians were massacred by the communist authorities. After this, the protest became a war. -
THE BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL
There were two zones in the city of Berlin :a Soviet zone of influence within the German Democratic Republic and a Western that was surrounded by the communist infuence. The population wanted to go to the western part of the city to have a better standard of living and, because of this, the communist government of the GDR built a wall with the help of the USSR to separate the two sides. -
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
Nikita Khrushchev took the initiative that would set off a dangerous situation, in which he decided to place in Cuba a base with 42 nuclear missiles, all targeting the United States of America. The US government realized that the USSR had nuclear missile bases on the island of Cuba, which could lead to armed conflict and even world war III. -
THE END OF THE COLD WAR - THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL/ THE END OF THE USSR
The US and the USSR signed several disarmament and arms reduction agreements. At the end, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissapearance of the Soviet Union, the Cold War ended and a new internacional order began, in which the United States reamined as the only world superpower.
