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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution marked the end of centuries of imperial rule in Russia. During this time Russia was also being industrialized, which caused some city's populations to nearly double. This caused a shortage of life essentials, protesting, and ultimately the overthrow of the czar. -
Potsdam Conference
After World War 2, president Truman and Winston Churchill met to discuss the best way to secure political freedom. Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union did not agree with them however. Stalin was still set on dictating all of Europe and spreading communism throughout. -
Atomic Bomb - Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In 1945, towards the end of World War II, Japan still was not surrendering. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had an agreement that if Japan had not surrendered by a certain date, that the S.U. could go in and help defeat Japan. However, the U.S. had a feeling that the Soviet was going to try to turn Japan into a communist country. The US felt that the only way to stop this would to be to drop a bomb on Japan. On August 6th, two days before their agreed date, the US did so. -
Long Telegram
A telegram that would greatly impact the US's view on containment towards the SSU was sent from Kennan with an analysis of Russian policies. Kennan was located at an US embassy in Moscow, he sent this telegram to share with the US his views on how to handle this situation. -
Hollywood 10
During the Red Scare, the US was suspicious of almost anyone being a communist. People were getting interrogated left and right because of this. The Hollywood 10 was a group of men who did not care to share any information regarding whether or not they were involved the the USSR. This lead to jail sentences for all 10 of them, and the ban from working in any major Hollywood productions again. -
Truman Doctrine
With the Truman doctrine, our president at the time, Harry Truman, said the US would provide economic, military, and political aid to all countries under threat from the expansion of communism. This was very helpful in the reformation of the US's current foreign policy. -
Marshall Plan
This was a US initiative to aid 12 billion dollars to the western European countries that needed rebuilding after World War II. The US wanted to help remove trade barriers, rebuild war-torn regions, improve European prosperity, modernize industry, and help stop the spread of communism. -
Molotov Plan
The purpose of the Molotov plan was for the Soviet to provide aid to help rebuild its fallen countries. This was originally called the Brother Plan. The Molotov plan was almost the Soviet's equivalent of the Marshall plan, because they had declined the US's offer. -
Berlin Blockade
After the Yalta conference, Germany was divided among these countries to help rebuild the government. Russia was included in this plan, and in their territory was Berlin.The purpose of the Berlin Blockade was to lessen the access of countries such as France, Great Britain and the United States to their sectors of Berlin that they previously occupied. -
Berlin Airlift
When the Berlin Blockade was happening, the city was running low on many resources. The Berlin Airlift was the attempt made by the Unites States, and the Unites Kingdom to send fuel and food to Berlin via aircraft. -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was working as a US government official during the Cold War. Hiss was convicted of perjury. He was alleged to be spying on the US to get information for the Soviet Union. He was found guilty after a long trial and sentenced to five year of imprisonment. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international alliance that is made up of 29 countries including North America and France. NATO in a way, is the improved version of the League of Nations. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on 1949, which helped establish NATO. -
First Soviet Bomb Test
After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin felt compelled to develop a nuclear bomb in the next five years. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
In 1949 Mao Zedong declared China an independent nation, also known as the Peoples Republic of China. Not only did this break the tension between the Chinese communists and the non communists, it also ended the long going civil war in China. -
Korean War
The Korean war started when that Northern Korean soldiers flooded into Southern Korea, crossing the 38th Parallel. The country was divided in half to separate the pro- Western Peoples Republic of Korea, and the Soviet-back Peoples Republic of Korea. The US eventually joined in the war to defend the citizens on Southern Korea's behalf. -
Rosenberg Trial
Julius Rosenberg, and his wife Ethel were Soviet spies who worked their way up to working around the production of atomic weapons that were tested in 1949. The couple was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death in 1952. The two were executed in 1953. -
Army McCarthy hearings
Senator Joseph McCarthy was already being suspected as an undercover communist. McCarthy had a national televised hearing that took place from April to June of 1954. He turned to army security but they charged him with improper influence to win preferential treatment. This trail was not fair, and from it derived the term McCarthyism, "the practice of publicizing accusations of treason and disloyalty with insufficient evidence." -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw pact was a collective defense treaty signed in Poland, between the Soviet Union and Poland. Formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual assistance, the Warsaw Pact established a balance of powers between the two countries. This lasted until 1991. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution was a nationwide revolt against the Hungarians government policies that had been imposed with soviet ways. It began as a student protest which ended up attracting thousands for marches. The revolt spread quickly and ultimately led to the governments collapse. -
The U2 Indecent
One of the United States U-2 spy planes was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces during the collection of mages and data of the Soviet Union. The plane was flown by pilot Francis Gary Powers, and he successfully landed after parachuting safely. He was captured and convicted of espionage but ultimately was given back to the US. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed attempt by US-sponsored Cuban exiles to reverse Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. This began with a invasion of northern Cuba. The invaders surrendered after only three days, with the majority being publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin wall is a barrier made out of concrete separating Western Germany from Eastern. The Eastern part was completely communist and wanted to trap and cut off their people away from any type of democracy. The wall contained large towers and guards so that if someone tried to escape they would be shot and killed or captured and imprisoned. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day 'argument' between the Soviet Union and United States when the US found out that the Soviets were giving Cuba nuclear weapon secrets. It is considered to be the closest confrontation that the two had to being a full blown out nuclear war. After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev, that the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union. -
Assassination of JFK
JFK was the 35th president and was assassinated at 12:30 pm in Dallas, Texas by a former US marine named Lee Harvey Oswald. President Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting.Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police Department 70 minutes after the initial shooting. It took 10 months of trial to finally convict him of murder. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Invasion of Czechoslovakia was by five Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany and Hungary. Approximately 250,000 Warsaw pact troops attacked Czechoslovakia, Romania and Albania refused to participate. 137 Czechoslovakian civilians were killed and 500 seriously wounded during the occupation. The invasion started a series of events that would ultimately see Brezhnev establishing peace with U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972. -
Nixon Visits
On July 15, 1971, the President shocked the world by announcing on live television that he would visit the PRC the following year. When communist took over China the United States recognized, the Republic of China as the sole government of China. The relationship between China and the U.S. is now one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world, and every successive U.S. president, except Jimmy Carter, has visited China. -
Reagan elected
Ronald Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Reagan was different than the other republicans running because while they wanted to contain communism he wanted to destroy it. -
Strategic Defense Initiative Announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. Reagan was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which he described as a suicide pact, and he called upon the scientists and engineers of the United States to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The two leaders met to discuss the Cold War-era arms race, primarily the possibility of reducing the number of nuclear weapons. Hosted in Geneva, Switzerland, the meeting was the first American-Soviet summit in more than six years. The first thing Reagan said to Gorbachev was "The United States and the Soviet Union are the two greatest countries on Earth, the superpowers. They are the only ones who can start World War 3, but also the only two countries that could bring peace to the world". -
Tear down this wall speech
A speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin. Reagan called for Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had separated West and East Berlin since 1961. Though it received relatively little media coverage at the time, it became widely known in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the day before Reagan's visit, 50,000 people had demonstrated against the presence of the American president in Berlin. -
The fall of the Berlin wall
The fall of the Berlin wall marked a new era. After many years the communist party finally declared that people were free to cross the borders. People started using anything they could to chip down the wall piece by piece and finally bulldozers and other things came to bring it down. The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the non physical separation of the countries belonging to the Warsaw pact, and the countries belonging to NATO. The Iron Curtain lasted from 1945-1991. The symbolism of the curtain was the Soviet's effort to block the west countries from their allied countries.