-
World War II Ends
After six years of fighting, World War II is fully over. VE (Victory in Europe Day) happens on May 8th, 1945, but the Japanese continue to fight until September, finally surrendering on the 2nd of September after the United States dropped two atomic bombs, one on the city of Hiroshima and the other on the city of Nagasaki. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine (established March 12, 1947) was a doctrine created by then-President Harry Truman that stated that communism would not be allowed to spread. The doctrine was (at the time) specifically referring to Turkey and Greece where the threat of communism was growing. The idea of containing the expansion of communism would become one of the guiding principles throughout the remainder of the Cold War. -
The Marshall Plan
In an address given at Harvard University on June 5th, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a plan (now remembered as the Marshall Plan) in which money would be pumped into Europe to help it recover post-WWII. The official title was the European Recovery Program (ERP) and it was intended to create a democratic, free-market-oriented Western Europe. The plane worked very well and Western Europe recovered after the destruction of World War II. -
Germany is Divided
On May 23, 1949, the division between the American-influenced, Capitalist Western Germany and the Soviet-influenced, Communist Eastern Germany becomes official with the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany (Western Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (Eastern Germany). The country would remain divided in two almost until the end of the Cold War, with it finally being reunified in 1990. -
China Falls to Communism
On October 1st, 1949, Mao Zedong declares victory in China and takes over mainland China. The People's Republic of China is the new party in power, and China officially becomes a communist country. The fall of China to communism contributed greatly to the American sense of panic that communism was spreading (like a row of dominos) uncontrolled through the world. -
Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare
On February 9th, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had a list of 205 communists working in the government. In fact, McCarthy had no such list, but that did not matter. He had tapped into the widespread American fear of communism and used it to his own advantage. This first era of fear of communism is remembered as the second "Red Scare." McCarthy eventually was recognized as a fraud and a hoax and he and his claims of communists faded into the background. -
NSC-68
National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68) was a document that laid out what America was up against in the Cold War. It stated that the communists saw America as the "principal enemy" that must be destroyed or reduced. It suggested a "rapid build-up of political, economic, and military strength” in order to “roll back the Kremlin’s drive for world domination.” NSC-68 was an important document because it established the communist threat and explained how it could be met. -
The Korean War Begins
The Korean peninsula is divided into North and South Korea, with the North being the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the South being the Republic of Korea. Tension is high between the two sides, and finally, the North attacked the South in an attempt to unify the two under communism. The United Nations responded, pushing the North Koreans back until the Chinese got involved. The war eventually stalemated at the 38th parallel until an armistice was agreed upon in 1953.