The Cold War

Cold War

Period: Jan 1, 1945 to Dec 31, 1991

Potsdam Conference

Jul 17, 1945

• it was a conferece held at Cecilienhof in Potsdam occupied Germany
• the people that attended were Stalin, Churchill, Clement Attlee, and President Harry Trumansdf
• This group was assembled to decided how to punish Nazi Germany
• More goals of this group involved peace treaties and counteracting the effects of the war

Formation of the United Nations

Oct 24, 1945

• took about over 3 years to complete the charter for the UN
• they had to decied who had permanent members and who was slightly less important so they would have temporary posistions in the council
• there were 50 different nations that had Representatives there

Iron Curtain descends on Europe

Mar 5, 1946

-It was a metaphorical curtain dividing Europe in the Soviet east and the Allied powers to the west
-When Joseph Stalin died in 1953 the division was lessened but when the Berlin wall was contructed in 1961 it was empowered again
-it then ceased to exsist in 1989-1990

Truman Doctrine

Mar 12, 1947

• the Truman Doctrine was to give millitary support to Greece

- The U.S. government thought that if greece wasnt provided support then the Soviets would support Greece and they would lose the greece war and the soviets would directly influence Greek policy

Marshall Plan

Apr 5, 1947

-was a program where we would help rebuild parts of Europe that were destroyed
-countries that were included saw their national Products go up by 15-20%
-United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey and West Germany were all involved with it

Creation of Israel

May 14, 1948

• David Ben-Gurion established the sate of Israel
• U.S. president Harry S. Truman recognized them the same day.
• The British didnt want the creation of a Jewish state and a Arab state.
• They also didnt want them to have unlimited jewish immigration

Berlin Air Lift

Jun 24, 1948

• The Russians wanted berlin all to themselves so they closed off all highways so that they can stop food from getting to west berlin so that the U.S., France, and Britain would leave from berlin
• instead they brought all their supplies by airplanes
• they ended up lifting over 2.3 million tons of cargo into west berlin

Formation of NATO

Apr 4, 1949

• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• was formed with the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway,Italy, Portugal and the United States
• was made to combat the soviet union
• they made a rival group called Warsaw pact

Korean War (is it over?)

Jun 25, 1950

• It was when 75,000 soldiers from north korea started to move into south korea
• America responded to this very fast and sent american troops into South Korea
• American officals saw this as if america was fighting directly with communism -5 million civilions and soldiers died in the war i dont think it is over because Korea is still split into two parts and north korea is in alot of ways a huge threat

Stalin Dies

Mar 5, 1953

• while he was a kid in school he would secretly start reading Karl Marx who is kinda known as the founder of communism -He is known as a man who Stopped the nazi domination but also someone who killed pretty much 10 million of his own people
• after he died the cold war was lessened until the building of the berlin wall

Warsaw Pact formed

May 14, 1955

it was a pact formed after the allied powers joined a group called NATO
- The soviets just wanted to show that they could rival their group with their own
- the members include East Germany, Albania, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Soviet union, and Czechoslovakia

Suez Crisis

Oct 29, 1956

• its when Britain, isreal, And France invaded Egypt because their president nationalized the Suez canal -The U.S., the Soviet union, and the United Nations helped force the three powers out of Egypt -Egypt was wanted western control of the canal to remove power from the Nesser

Sputnik I & Sputnik II

Oct 4, 1957

• Sputnik I was the first satellite launched into space and was the size of a baseball
• it also marked the start of the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union
• The Sputnik II was the second spacecraft launched into space
• This was the first biological Spacecraft
• it sent engineering and biological data back to earth every 15 mins in orbit

NASA is formed

Oct 1, 1958

Eisenhower sent a draft legislation to congress and it established the National Aeronautics Space agency
-Eilene Galloway changed the agency part of the name into Administration because she thought that administration would give them more power which she thought they would need it
- Keith Glennan was the first Administrator

Bay of Pigs invasion

Apr 17, 1961

• the plan was to send alot of trained cuban refugees to attack Cuba to try to overtake Fidel Castro for a more suitable leader that isnt a communist -the invasion failed on alot of levels
• the air support was obsolete
• the weather was bad
• confusion caused support to be defeated very fast

Berlin Wall Constructed

Aug 15, 1961

• was built to keep east germans going to west Germany
• people didnt want to be under the communist opression that was East Germany
• 5000 east germans managed to escape while thousands were capured and 191 were killed

Cuban Missile Crisis

Oct 22, 1962

-American spy plane found that there were soviet nuclear missle sites
-U.S. surrounded Cuba with ships to stop soviets from delivering military materials
-Khrushchev agreed to take the missles back if Kennedy took the missles out of Turkey

Kennedy is Assassinated

Nov 22, 1963

• he was assassinated with a sniper will attending a rally in Dallas, Texas -we was hit in the head and in the neck the shot also hit the governor in the chest but he was okay
• they thought that the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald but no one really knows

Vietnam War (U.S. involvement)

Mar 27, 1965

-started when the north sent 75,000 soldiers into the south to unify the country as a communist state
- U.S. decided that to help support the south against the north
- in their eyes they were fighting communism directly
- they mostly wanted to just hold them back while the south fought them to try to win the war
- Eventually the US had to back out because of pressure caused by students protesting

USS Pueblo Incident

Jan 23, 1968

-U.S. Survalence ship was attacked by north koreans
-83 crewmembers were bound and blindfolded and charged with spying and they were imprisoned
-before the koreans captured them they burned all classified info on the ship

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Mar 5, 1970

• this treaty is mostly about trying not stop countries from using nuclear weapons
• its also about using nuclear power for good like using it for harnessing the energy to power the cities

UN Resolution 2758

Oct 25, 1971

• was made to only reconize the Peoples Republic of China to be the only actual represenitive of China
• this ended china's membership at the UN

Nixon visits China

Feb 21, 1972

-Nixon was the first president to go to china
- This was important because he wanted to improve relations with the country especially since it was the cold war
- He met with Zhou Enlai to make permant trade promises

Salt I & Salt II Agreements

May 26, 1972

• Stands for the Strategic Arms Limitaion talks
• this was the first time that the US and the USSR talked about limiting nuclear Weapons that the other can have

Paris Peace Accords

Jan 27, 1973

• This agreement meant that there will be a cease fire in vietnam and that the US will withdraw all the troops they had there -They also had to dismantle all US bases
• The Viet cong decieded to let go of all of their prisoners that they had

South Vietnam falls

Apr 30, 1975

North Vietnam Over comes the army of the south
- the president of the south surrendered finally to the north after getting beat up pretty good

Iran Hostage Crisis

Nov 4, 1979

-group of iran students take 66 hostages
-they never killed or severely hurt any of the hostages
-they did it because jimmy carter let the exiled leader of iran into america

USSR invades Afghanistan

Dec 24, 1979

• they sent in over 30000 troops to take over the fairly new president
• The mujahideen rebellion is made up of mostly tribal and urban islams
• when soviets took over the rebellion was starting to try to takeit back so the soviets tried to use the native army but they started to desert so they had to use their own troops

U.S. & Soviet boycotts of the Olympics

Mar 21, 1980

• Jimmy carter declared that the US will boycott the olympics in Moscow because the soviets failed to take their troops out of Afghanistan
• Jimmy carter said that his opinion had drasticly changed from when he first started as president
• before this the cold war was begining to thaw -Many other countries joined in on the boycott
• peoples reaction to Carter's decission was mixed

Korean Airline Flight 007

Sep 1, 1983

• this was when the soviets shot down a korean passenger plane. it killed 269 people mostly passengers
• it was going from new york to seoul
• It was coming from its last stop in alaska but started to go a little off course when they got shot down
• Reagan said this was pretty much a massacre

U.S. invades Grenada

Oct 25, 1983

-Reagan sent marines to save about 1000 students in Greada
- the Government was taken over in less than a week
- He announced that it was a rollback on the communist regime

Chernobyl disaster

Apr 26, 1986

• in the soviet union(ukarine) a reactor failed and it exploded and realeased tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere
• everybody close to it got either killed or got radiation sickness
• the workers who were sent to clean up were getting up to 100 times the annual amount of radiation a person should be getting

Iran Contra Affair

Nov 25, 1986

the Reagan Association was supporting rebels in Nicaragua
- they also sold guns to the iran government
- the actions he did was he contributed to the iranian revolution

Tiananmen Square Massacre

Jun 4, 1989

• it was when the chinese government thought it was necessary to spill the blood of some pro-democracy protesters
• it shocked the west and the U.S. Denounced them
• Nearly one million students crowd Tiananmen Square to protest
• at least 300 were killled and over ten thousand were incarcerated
  

Dissolving of the Soviet Union

Dec 25, 1991

• When the soviets decieded to loosen control over eastern Europe a democratic movement spread across causing independence all over
• George H.W. bush always encouraged Gorbachev’s decision to slowly change the ways of the soviets untill it finally turned over to a democracy