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Yalta Conference
SUMMARY: During this meeting, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to force Germany's unconditional surrender and to join forces in ruling the four conquered nations. Stalin agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe in return for the lands lost during the Russo-Japanese War.
IMPORTANCE: Churchill. Stalin and Roosevelt made important decision regarding the future of the war and the postwar world. -
Potsdam Conference
SUMMARY: President Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin established a Council of Foreign Ministers and a Central Allied Control Council for administration of Germany.The leaders also arrived at various agreements on the German economy, punishment for war criminals, land boundaries and reparations.
IMPORTANCE: Negotiated terms for the end of WWII -
U.S. Drops Bomb on Hiroshima
SUMMARY: An American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured.
IMPORTANCE: Intended to cause Japan to surrender to the allied forces and bring about the end of WWII. -
End of WWII
SUMMARY: A war fought from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers — Germany, Italy, and Japan — and the Allies, including France and Britain, and later the Soviet Union and the United States.
IMPORTANCE: End of German Reich, United States and Russia become global superpowers, and founding of the United Nations. -
Iron Curtain (Winston Churchill)
SUMMARY: The notional barrier separating the former Soviet bloc and the West prior to the decline of communism that followed the political events in eastern Europe in 1989.
IMPORTANCE: Marks the commencement of the Cold War between the democratic Western world and the Communist Eastern bloc with the Soviet Union as its political center. -
Korean War Begins
SUMMARY: A war, fought in the early 1950s between the United Nations, supported by the United States, and the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The war began in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea.
IMPORTANCE: Victory was not the goal, saw the use of helicopters and jets, first shooting confrontation of the Cold War. -
Soviets Launch Satellite
SUMMARY: Each of a series of Soviet artificial satellites, the first of which (launched on October 4, 1957) was the first satellite to be placed in orbit.
IMPORTANCE: Launched the so called "space age" -
Castro Becomes Premier of Cuba
SUMMARY: Castro’s regime was successful in reducing illiteracy, stamping out racism and improving public health care, but was widely criticized for stifling economic and political freedoms
IMPORTANCE: Established the first Communist State in the Western Hemisphere. -
Bay of Pigs
SUMMARY: Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government. On Apr. 17, 1961, an armed force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed in the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba
IMPORTANCE: Lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis -
East Germany Builds Berlin Wall
SUMMARY: Berlin Wall definition. Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West.
IMPORTANCE: Built to prevent the Germans under the Communist rule of the East from escaping into the Democratic West -
Cuban Missile Crisis
SUMMARY: Cuban missile crisis definition. A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war.
IMPORTANCE: When the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war. -
Nixon Visits China
SUMMARY: Richard Nixon meets with Mao Zedong in Beijing, February 21, 1972. U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States (U.S.) and the People's Republic of China (PRC).
IMPORTANCE: Lead to an open-trade policy between the U.S. and China. -
Berlin Wall Demolished
SUMMARY: Tore down the border seperating the East from the West. Residents of the GDR could officially cross the border whenever they pleased.
IMPORTANCE: One of the most powerful and eduring symbols of the Cold War. -
Soviet Union Abolished
SUMMARY: Awknowledged the independence of the former Soviet Republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States.
IMPORTANCE: End of the Cold War -
Cold War Ends
SUMMARY: A constant nonviolent state of hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States. The cold war began shortly after World War II, with the rapid extension of Soviet influence over eastern Europe and North Korea. With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the cold war ended.
IMPORTANCE: War ended
