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Russian Revolution
Pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled Tsarists autocracy and led to the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. -
Potsdam Conference
Conference to help secure political freedom in post-war Europe. It included Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Harry Truman. -
Atomic Bomb - Hiroshima/Nagasaki
Hiroshima was almost completely destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a populated area. Followed by the bombing of Nagasaki, on August 9. -
Iron Curtain
Name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas. -
Truman Doctrine
The principle that the US should give support to countries or people threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. -
Hollywood 10
10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations. -
Marshall Plan
A program by which the United States gave large amounts of economic aid to European countries to help them rebuild after the devastation of World War II. -
Berlin Blockade
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. -
Berlin Airlift
A military operation that brought food and other needed goods into West Berlin by air after the government of East Germany, which at that time surrounded West Berlin, had cut off its supply routes. -
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II to strengthen international ties between member states and to serve as a counter-balance to the Soviet Union -
Alger Hiss Case
American government official who was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. -
Soviet Bomb test
When the Soviet Union first tested their atomic bombs. It came as a great shock to the United States because they were not expecting the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapon knowledge so soon. -
Korean War
A war, also called the Korean conflict, 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. -
Rosenberg Trial
A court case involving Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, an American couple who were executed in 1953 as spies for the Soviet Union. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The battle of Dien Bien Phu was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist-nationalist revolutionaries. -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Geneva Conference
Conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, in order to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolutions was a nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. -
U2 Incident
When a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Berlin Wall
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. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba. -
Assassination of Diem
Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem was captured and killed by a group of soldiers. The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. -
Assassination of JFK
JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Approving and supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson's determination to repel any armed attack against U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968, by the forces of North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S, against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American clergyman and civil rights leader who was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 -
Assassination of RFK
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, officially known as Operation Danube, was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by four Warsaw Pact nations , the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, on the night of 20–21 August 1968. -
Riots of Democratic convention
On this day in 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
Election of Nixon
Eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president. -
Kent State
The Kent State shootings were the shootings of unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, by members of the Ohio National Guard. -
Nixon visits China
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. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon, was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. -
Reagan elected
Ronald Reagan , a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. Raised in small-town Illinois, he became a Hollywood actor in his 20s and later served as the Republican governor of California from 1967 to 1975. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held on November 19 and 20, 1985, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations. -
'Tear down this wall' speech
"Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was torn down as a symbol of the fall of the repressive East German communist government. When East Germans were finally allowed to freely enter West Germany, on Nov. 9, 1989, thousands of Germans responded emotionally by demolishing the wall with sledgehammers, pickaxes and other implements.
