cold war timeline

By alekseyzaitsev

  • The Iron Curtain

    was 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 satelites from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas.

  • 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 Berlin Airlift

    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. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin.

  • Formation of NATO

    The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created 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 Sates entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere.

  • The Vietnam War

    A war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United Sates, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies.

  • Formation of Warsaw Pact

    The prospect of further Comunist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations t form The North Atlantic treaty Organization. The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nation in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.

  • Sputnik

    Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low earth orbit on Oct 4, 1957. it was a 57 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses.

  • U-2 accident

  • Berlin wall goes up

    The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961.