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The Cold War
The cold war was a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular. -
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
The Berlin blockade was one of the first major international criseses of the Cold War. During World War II, Germany and The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the Berlin under allied control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutschmark from West Berlin. In response, the Western Allies organised to carry supplies. -
Korean War
The Korean War began when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army traveled 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. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war. -
Space Race
This is where the US and Soviets had an intense rivalry about space and who can get the farthest first. Soviets started with the lead with Sputnik 1, however when they kept competing it actually brought them together and made the International Space Station. -
U-2 Reconnaissance Plane
The 1960 U-2 incident happened during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace. The aircraft, flown by Central Intelligence Agency pilot Francis Gary Powers, was performing aerial reconnaissance when it was hit by an S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile and crashed in Sverdlovsk. -
Bay of Pigs
This where the US tried to invade Cuba but failed miserably, this embarrassed the US. The Bay of Pigs was a military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. -
Reagan visits the Wall
In June of 1987, President Ronald Reagan stopped in West Berlin on the 750th anniversary of the city and delivered one of his most famous lines when he demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall. In an address to the nation following his return from that trip, President Reagan recalls standing next to the imposing structure. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
This was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
This was one of the first steps to slow the arms race. There were two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpower on the issue of armament control. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. -
Soviets invade Afghanistan
The US and the Soviets each back a different side and this led to the US boycotting the 1980 Olympics. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anticommunist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War and remained in Afghanistan until mid-February 1989. -
Reunited Germany
This where East and west Germany reunited, East Germany was no longer Communist. In East Germany, conservative parties supporting reunification won the elections, and the new government and the force of events proceeded to dismantle the state.
