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Potsdam Conference
In 1945, The Big Three met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. With the war over, the Allies had to decide what to do with the shattered nations of Europe. -
Churchill Speach
Churchill's speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. He had declared "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.". -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American froeign policy to stop Soviet imperialism during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S.Truman when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Marshall Plan
$13 billion dollars was provided for rebuilding Europe. The plan helped Western Europe make a rapid recovery from the war, and it also helped preserve political stability. -
Soviets Blockade West Berlin
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international cries of the Cold War. The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
North Atlantic Treaty and the NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. THe first NATO Secretary General, Loed Ismay, stated in1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." -
Berlin Airlift
Instead of retreating from West Berlin, the U.S. and it's allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. This effort lasted for more than a year, and it carried more than 2.3 million tons of cargo into West Berlin. -
Korean War
This war began when some 75,00 soldiers from North Korea, had poured across the 38th parallel, the boundry between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Rebublic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Arms Race
This was a dangerous compettition between The U.S. and Soviet Union, as they competed to best one another in quantity and quallity of their nuclear arms. In the end, none of these nuclear arms were ever used. Though if any eight of them were to have been fired, if could have ended most life on earth. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the Paris Pacts of 1954,but was primarily motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe. In March 1954, the USSR, fearing "the restoration of German Militarism" in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. -
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, for supremacy in spaceflight capability.The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. -
Bay Of Pigs Invasion
In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.The US government distrusted Castro and was wary of his relationship with Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union. So on April 17, 1961, 1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, The Missile Scare, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Arms Control
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that were aimed at curtailing the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The first agreements, known as SALT I and SALT II, were signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1972 and 1979, respectively, and were intended to restrain the arms race in strategic ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons.
