Cold War Timeline

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    Use of the Policy of Containment

    Use of the Policy of Containment 1945–53
    containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism. The Cold War had this policy because it was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist area of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea,
  • Formation of the United Nations

    The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation and to create and maintain international order. They include United States, Great Britain, China, France, Soviet Union. This is important because it is a power in the world that will protect each other.
  • Truman Doctrine

    Truman Doctrine: In 1947, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. (Greece, Turkey)
  • 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, 1947.
  • Creation of the state of Israel May 14, 1948

    On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. This is important because the Jewish state was proclaimed and started. Which lead the rise of Jewish culture in the world.The United states and GB helped them because they have 6 million less people and help create a spot where they can go to be safe.
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    Berlin Airlift:

    Berlin Airlift: June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949. Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The US and UK responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied air bases in western Germany. The crisis ended when Soviet forces lifted the blockade on land access to western Berlin.
  • NATO formed

    NATO formed: April 4, 1949. In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the US and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
  • Korean War:

    On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed north and the pro-Western south.The United Nations joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People’s Republic of China came to North Korea’s aid. After more than a million combat casualties had been suffered on both sides the fighting ended in July 1953 with Korea still divided.
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    Warsaw Pact

    Warsaw Pact created: 14 May 1951 to July 1991. 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.
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    Vietnam War

    Vietnam War: Nov 1, 1955 to April 30, 1975. The period when the US and other members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization joined the forces of the Republic of South Vietnam to go against communist forces of South Vietnamese guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army. It was caused because the US felt that communism was going to expand all over south-east Asia. In the end, Vietnam reunites to be communist country.
  • Berlin Wall Is Built

    After WWII, tensions grew when the United States, Britain, and France moved in 1948 to unite their occupation zones into a single autonomous entity–the Federal Republic of Germany, In response, the USSR launched a land blockade of West Berlin trying to force the West to abandon the city. By 1961, many East Germans were unhappy under communist government. Many left to go to the West where it was under a democratic system.
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    Cuban Missile Crisis

    Leaders of the US and the Soviet Union engaged in a 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from US shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President Kennedy told Americans about the presence of the missiles. He explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the US was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this possible threat to national security.
  • Camp David Accords

    A peace treaty between Israel and Egypt issuing from talks at Camp David between Egyptian President Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Begin, and the host, U.S. President Carter. He signed it in 1979.
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    Implementation of perestroika and glasnost:

    Introduced profound changes in economic practice, internal affairs and international relations. Within five years, Gorbachev’s revolutionary program swept communist governments throughout Eastern Europe from power and brought an end to the Cold War, the largely political and economic rivalry between the Soviets and the US and their respective allies that emerged following WWII.
  • Fall of the Berlin Wall

    The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself.
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    Soviet Union Dissolves

    On Christmas Day 1991, the SU flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. A few days earlier, representatives from 11 Soviet republics met in the Kazakh city of Alma-Ata and announced that they would no longer be part of the SU. They declared they would establish a Commonwealth of Independent States.The SU had fallen, largely due to the great number of radical reforms that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented during his 6 years as the leader of the USSR.