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Yalta Conference
sourceThe Yalta Conference was a meeting of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt early in February 1945 as World War II was winding down. The leaders agreed to require Germany’s unconditional surrender and to set up in the conquered nation four zones of occupation to be run by their three countries and France. They scheduled another meeting for April in San Francisco to create the United Nations. -
Period: to
Cold War
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Berlin Declaration
sourceOn 5 June 1945 the supreme commanders of the Western powers met for the first time with their colleague from the Soviet Union. The meeting was hosted by the Soviet forces in Berlin. They had captured the capital of the German Reich in the final stages of a very fierce battle in early May and had administered it alone for the ensuing two months. -
Potsdam Conference
sourceHeld near Berlin, the Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945) was the last of the World War II meetings held by the “Big Three” heads of state. Featuring American President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (and his successor, Clement Attlee) and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, the talks established a Council of Foreign Ministers and a central Allied Control Council for administration of Germany. -
North Vietnam
source In South Vietnam, 1400 French soldiers released by the British from former Japanese internment camps enter Saigon and go on a deadly rampage, attacking Viet Minh and killing innocent civilians including children, aided by French civilians who joined the rampage. An estimated 20,000 French civilians live in Saigon. -
Iron Curtain Speech
sourceIn this speech, Churchill gave the very descriptive phrase that surprised the United States and Britain, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." Before this speech, the U.S. and Britain had been concerned with their own post-war economies and had remained extremely grateful for the Soviet Union's proactive role in ending World War II. -
Marshall Plan
sourceThe Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of ‘restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.’ The plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5. -
Containment Policy
sourceAn article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, signed X, proposed that the West adopt a policy of "containment" toward the Soviet Union. The article's author, George Kennan, who set up the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1943, called on the United States to take steps to prevent Soviet expansion. He was convinced that if the Soviet Union failed to expand, its social system would eventually break down. -
Berlin Blockade
sourceThe Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. Eventually, the western powers instituted an airlift that lasted nearly a year and delivered much-needed supplies and relief to West Berlin. Coming just three years after the end of World War II, the blockade was the first major clash of the Cold War. -
Berlin Airlift
sourceIn response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. -
NATO
sourceThe United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe. NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military alliance against the Soviet Union throughout the duration of the Cold War. It is powerful organization our time too. -
Soviet Union tests A-Bomb
sourceAt a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. The atomic explosion, which at 20 kilotons was roughly equal to “Trinity,” the first U.S. atomic explosion, destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals. -
People’s Republic of China founded
sourceNaming himself head of state, communist revolutionary Mao Zedong officially proclaims the existence of the People’s Republic of China; Zhou Enlai is named premier. The proclamation was the climax of years of battle between Mao’s communist forces and the regime of Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek, who had been supported with money and arms from the American government. The loss of China,was a severe blow to the U.S., which was still reeling from the Soviet Union’s detonation. -
Second Red Scare
sourceAs World War II was ending, a fear-driven movement known as the Second Red Scare began to spread across the United States. Americans feared that the Soviet Union hoped to spread communism all over the world, overthrowing both democratic and capitalist institutions as it went. Communism was, in theory, an expansionist ideology, spread through revolution. With the Soviet Union occupying Eastern and Central Europe, Americans believed that this nation would continue to militarily spread communism. -
Korean War - American involvement
sourceArmed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years.On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces surprised the South Korean army (and the small U.S. force stationed in the country), and quickly headed toward the capital city of Seoul. -
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
sourceThe Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and sentenced to death under Section 2 of the Espionage Act. The couple were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. Judge Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War, since the information leaked to the Russians was believed to help them develop the A-bomb and stimulate Communist aggression in Korea. -
Eisenhower Presidency
sourceDwight David Eisenhower took the oath of office on Tuesday, January 20, 1953. The oath was administered by Chief justice Frederick Moore Vinson. Before delivering his inaugural address, the President offered a prayer.Then e became a great leader. -
Nikita Khrushchev
sourceIn 1953, Stalin died, and Khrushchev grappled with Stalin’s chosen successor, Georgy Malenkov, for the position of first secretary of the Communist Party. Khrushchev won the power struggle, and Malenkov was made premier, a more ceremonial post. He was an great leader. -
Warsaw Pact
sourceThe Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. The introduction to the treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact indicated the reason for its existence. -
Suez Crisis
sourceOn July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, the joint British-French enterprise which had owned and operated the Suez Canal since its construction in 1869. Nasser’s announcement came about following months of mounting political tensions between Egypt, Britain, and France. The Egyptian leader, in turn, resented what he saw as European efforts to perpetuate their colonial domination. -
Hungarian Revolution
sourcethousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. In response, Communist Party officials appointed Imre Nagy, a former premier who had been dismissed from the party for his criticisms of Stalinist policies, as the new premier. Nagy tried to restore peace and asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops. The Soviets did so, but Nagy then tried to push the Hungarian revolt forward by abolishing one-party rule. -
Sputnik
sourceThe world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. -
Cuban Revolution
sourceBatista and a number of his supporters fled Cuba. Tens of thousands of Cubans (and thousands of Cuban-Americans in the United States) joyously celebrated the end of the dictator’s regime. Castro’s supporters moved quickly to establish their power. Judge Manuel Urrutia was named as provisional president. Castro and his band of guerrilla fighters triumphantly entered Havana -
U2 Incident
sourceAn American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month.The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel. It could take take high-resolution pictures of headlines in Russian newspapers as it flew overhead. -
Kennedy Presidency
sourceJohn F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many observers believed that Kennedy’s poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. -
First Man in Space
sourceOn April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. -
Bay of Pigs (1961)
sourceThough many of his military advisors indicated that an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles had little chance for success, Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the attack. On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry, who would rise up and overthrow Castro’s government. -
Berlin Wall
source East German soldiers laid down more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin. East Berlin citizens were forbidden to pass into West Berlin, and the number of checkpoints in which Westerners could cross the border was drastically reduced.The West, taken by surprise, threatened a trade embargo against East Germany as a retaliatory measure.The wall, East German authorities declared, would protect their citizens from the pernicious influence of decadent capitalist culture. -
Checkpoint Charlie
sourceIt began on a Sunday evening, Oct. 22, as Allan Lightner, the senior American civilian official in Berlin, tried to pass through Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse to attend the opera in East Berlin. The East German police blocked Lightner's car and refused to let him pass, violating the long-standing principle that officials of the four occupying powers could drive into any sector of the city in a properly licensed car without showing identification. -
JFK Assassination
source Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
sourceThe Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. During the spring of 1964, military planners had developed a detailed design for major attacks on the North, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that the public would not support an expansion of the war. By summer, however, rebel forces had established control over nearly half of South Vietnam, and Senator Barry Goldwater. -
Vietnam War - American involvement
sourceThe US Senate essentially gave the President the power to provide assistance to any country that needed to defend its freedom. By February 1965 aerial bombing of North Vietnam had commenced and 150,000 American troops had been landed in South Vietnam.American involvement in Vietnam was at its peak in 1965 when a maximum of 500,000 American troops were in Vietnam. -
SALT I
source The United States learned that the Soviet Union had embarked upon a massive Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) buildup designed to reach parity with the United States. In January 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announced that the Soviet Union had begun to construct a limited Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defense system around Moscow. The development of an ABM system could allow one side to launch a first strike and then prevent the other from retaliating by shooting down incoming missiles. -
Tet Offensive
sourceCONTENTS PRINT CITE
On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year holiday called Tet), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the Vietnamese population and encourage the U.S. scale back its support of Saigon regime. -
Prague Spring (1968)
sourceThe Prague Spring of 1968 is the term used for the brief period of time when the government of Czechoslovakia led by Alexander Dubček seemingly wanted to democratise the nation and lessen the stranglehold Moscow had on the nation’s affairs. The Prague Spring ended with a Soviet invasion, the removal of Alexander Dubček as party leader and an end to reform within Czechoslovakia. -
Nixon Presidency
sourceOn January 20th, 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon was sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. As those before him had done, the new President promised to listen to all the people.The year 1969 was certainly not a dull one for the new President. Nixon faced his first real congressional test squarely. He was for and wanted Congress to approve an Anti-Ballistic missile defense system. -
Apollo 11
sourceApollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin into an initial Earth-orbit of 114 by 116 miles. An estimated 530 million people watched Armstrong's televised image and heard his voice describe the event as he took "...one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". -
Nixon visits China
sourceOn February 21, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon arrived in China for an official trip. He was the first U.S. president to visit the People's Republic of China since it was established in 1949. This was an important event because the U.S. was seeking to improve relations with a Communist country during the Cold War.On his visit to China, Nixon met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The two leaders agreed to expand cultural contacts between their two nations. -
Détente
sourceDétente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972. -
SALT II
source The negotiations lasted until January of 1972, and by May 26 of that same year the treaty was finalized. The two treaties signed that day were the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, or ABM, and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. Provisions of the ABM treaty included regulation of antiballistic missiles that could possibly be used to destroy incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s) launched by other countries. -
Yom Kippur War
sourceThe Yom Kippur War of 1973, the most recent ‘full’ war in Middle East history, is so-called because it began on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the holiest day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar. The Yom Kippur War started with a surprise Arab attack on Israel on Saturday 6th October 1973. On this day, Egyptian and Syrian military forces launched an attack knowing that the military of Israel would be participating in the religious celebrations associated with Yom Kippur. -
Fall of Saigon
sourceOn April 30, 1975, a North Vietnamese tank broke through the walls of the South’s presidential palace. The troops cornered South Vietnam’s last president Duong Van Minh and when he told his captives that he wanted to surrender, they informed him that he no longer had anything left to surrender. -
Iranian Revolution
sourceTehran, Iran's capital, was in a state of revolt on Jan. 19, 1979. The Shah, Iran's ruler for nearly four decades, had fled the country. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite Muslim cleric who had worked for years to overthrow the Shah, was still in exile in Paris, but vowing to return and form an Islamic government. A million people took to the streets to cheer on Khomeini and denounce the Shah. -
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
source(KAL) flight 007 was on the last leg of a flight from New York City to Seoul, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. In just a short time, the plane flew into Russian airspace and crossed over the Kamchatka Peninsula, where some top-secret Soviet military installations were known to be located. The Soviets sent two fighters to intercept the plane. Failing to receive a response, one of the fighters fired a heat-seeking missile.KAL 007 was hit and plummeted into the Sea of Japan. All were killed. -
Reagan and Gorbachev meet
sourceFor the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship.The meeting came as somewhat of a surprise to some in the United States,. -
Reykjavik Summit
sourceOn October 11, 1986, halfway between Moscow and Washington, D.C., the leaders of the world’s two superpowers met at the stark and picturesque Hofdi House in Reykjavik, Iceland. Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev had proposed the meeting to President Ronald Reagan less than thirty days before. The expectations for the summit at Reykjavik were low. -
“Tear Down This Wall” speech
sourcePresident Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech marked his visit to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12, 1987, following the G7 summit meeting in Venice. As Reagan spoke, his words were amplified to both sides of the Berlin Wall, reaching both East and West Germans. Reagan declared that the Berlin Wall offered the Soviets and their president, Mikhail Gorbachev, an opportunity to make a “sign” of their sincerity and “advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.” -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
sourceIn May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. For nearly three weeks, the protesters kept up daily vigils, and marched and chanted. Western reporters captured much of the drama for television and newspaper audiences in the United States and Europe. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
source9 November 1989 marks the infamous fall of the Berlin Wall. On midnight of that day, East Germany's Communist rulers gave permission for gates along the Wall to be opened as a result of days of mass protest. After decades of partition, East Berliners surged through cheering and shouting and were greeted by West Berliners on the other side. Ecstatic crowds immediately began to climb on top of the Wall and destroy segments of the concrete fort. -
Gulf War
source On July 17, 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of flooding the world oil market. Specifically, he accused Kuwait for stealing oil from a disputed supply, the Rumaila oil field which ran beneath both countries, and thus waging "economic war" against Iraq. -
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
sourceIn December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II.
