-
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917 which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government. Alongside it arose grassroots community assemblies (called 'soviets') which contended for authority. In the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was toppled and all power was given to the soviets. -
Atomic Bomb Hiroshima/Nagasaki
The first atomic bomb was called the manhattan project. This bomb was specifically made to end the war between the U.S and Japan. When we dropped the bmb on hiroshima it instantly killed 60,000 people and later killed 300,000 more due to radiation poisoning and serious burns. Japan only believed we had one bomb therefore did not surrender, shortly after we dropped another one on Nagasaki which inflicted massive amounts of casualties. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union -
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was a gathering of the heads of Soviet Russia, United States, and the United kingdom. They were represented by Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee ,and Harry S. Truman to decide the fate of the defeated Nazi Germany -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on march 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Hollywood 10
10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the HUAC, an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov plan was symbolic of the Soviet Union's refusal to accept aid from the Marshall Plan, or allow any of their satellite states to do so, because of their belief that the Plan was an attempt to weaken Soviet interest in their satellite states, through the conditions imposed, and by making beneficiary countries economically dependent on the United States. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning on April 8, 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous once more, and prevent the spread of communism. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
Berlin Airlift
In response to the Berlin Blockade, the Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin. 338 planes flew over 200,000 flights in one year, providing to the West Berliners up to 8,893 tons of necessities each day, such as fuel and food.[ The Soviets did not disrupt the airlift for fear this might lead to open conflict. -
Alger Hiss case
Alger Hiss was an American government official who was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former U.S. Communist Party member, testified before the HUAC that Hiss had secretly been a Communist, while in federal service. -
Soviet Bomb Test
The Soviet Bomb Test was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during World War II.After learning of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities that officially ended World War II in 1945, the program was aggressively pursued, mainly through effective intelligence gathering about the German weapon project and the American Manhattan Project. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union also gave some assistance to the North. -
Rosenberg Trial
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were United States citizens who were executed on June 19, 1953 after being convicted of committing espionage for the Soviet Union. They were accused of transmitting nuclear weapon designs to the Soviet Union; at that time the United States was the only country with nuclear weapons. They also provided top-secret information about radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines to the USSR. -
Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference was a conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland.It was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
battle of Dien Bien Phu, the decisive engagement in the First Indochina War (1946–54). It consisted of a struggle between French and Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist and nationalist) forces for control of a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. -
Army-Mcarthy hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The Army accused Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 or the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Though leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR's forces drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II. -
U2 Incident
The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, the Wall cut off West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. -
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 in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. Tragedy was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. agreeing not to invade Cuba. -
Assassination of Diem
The brutal murder of the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem was a major turning point in the war in Vietnam. Up until the death of Ngo, the United States had been ‘advising the government of South Vietnam in its war against the Viet Cong and their benefactors, the government of North Vietnam. At the time, the United States had 16,000 troops in South Vietnam training the ARVN forces. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza and was fatally shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald. Lyndon B. Johnson automatically became President upon Kennedy's death. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S. 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr., American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested in London at Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States, and charged with the murder of MLK. -
Assassination of RFK
On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized. Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian/Jordanian immigrant, was convicted of Kennedy's murder and sentenced to death. -
Riots of Democratic Convention
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
Election of Nixon
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, won the election over the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. -
Kent State
The Kent State shootings were the shootings of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a mass protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Twenty-nine guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[ -
Nixon visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's rapprochement between the United States and China. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
President Richard Nixon ordered a ceasefire of the aerial bombings in North Vietnam. The decision came after Dr. Henry Kissinger, the National Security Affairs advisor to the president, returned to Washington from Paris, France with a draft peace proposal. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. -
Reagan Election
The United States presidential election of 1980 was between the Democratic national ticket of President Jimmy Carter from Georgia and Vice President Walter Mondale from Minnesota and the Republican national ticket of Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor and former Governor from California with his running mate George H.W. Bush, a former Congressman and CIA Director from Texas Reagan was 69 at the time and became the oldest person to ever assume the Oval Office at nearly 70. -
SDI Announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ICBM's. The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan on 23 March 1983.Reagan was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which he described 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. It became known as Star Wars -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race. Though they didn't make any progress in the arms race the two leaders created a relationship. -
Tear down this wall speech
The "Tear down this wall" is a speech made by US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961.[1] -
Fall of Berlin Wall
As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, Mikhail Gorbachev announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the Soviet Union were free to cross the country's borders.
