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The Cold War Timeline

  • The Suez Canal

    The Suez Canal
    the Suez Canal was opened to navigation. Ferdinand DE Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface.
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    Dwight D. Eisenhower

    After the war, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff and then took on the uncomfortable role as president of Columbia University. In 1951–52, he served as the first Supreme Commander of NATO. ... He became the first Republican elected President since 1928.He was a five-star general in the United States Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe.
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    Franklin D. Roosevelt

    His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. Reelected by comfortable margins in 1936, 1940 and 1944, FDR led the United States from isolationism to victory over Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II.
  • The Yalta Conference

    The Yalta Conference
    The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea conference and code named the Argonaut Conference, held from 4 to 11 February, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United.
  • End of World War 2

    End of World War 2
    WW2 ended with unconditional surrender of the Axis Forces. The Germans first surrendered on 29 April 1945 in Italy after Hitler’s death and total, unconditional surrender was signed on the 7th of May.By the 8th of May, Winston Churchill announced that the War had come to an end in Europe by announcing Victory in Europe, a date that is still celebrated today.
  • The Creation of the United Nations

    The Creation of the United Nations
    The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote international cooperation and to create and maintain international order. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict.
  • The Long Telegraph

    The Long Telegraph
    George Kennan, the American charge d'affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan's analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America's Cold War policy of containment.
  • Iron Curtain

    Iron Curtain
    The Iron Curtain is a significant Cold War topic, because the term "Iron Curtain" is used to explain the tension between countries that was a major cause of the Cold War. ... While the Iron Curtain remained, part of Eastern Europe and some of Central Europe were controlled by the Soviet Union, which was communist.
  • McCarthyism

    McCarthyism
    The term McCarthyism is applied to the persecution of innocent people using powerful but unproved allegations. It refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of communist subversion and high treason in the U.S. federal government in 1950s. His accusations were readily accepted by anxious post-war Americans.
  • Marshall Plan

    Marshall Plan
    The 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 plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
  • Truman Doctrine

    Truman Doctrine
    The Truman Doctrine, 1947. With the Truman Doctrine, 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.
  • Berlin Blockade/Airlift

    Berlin Blockade/Airlift
    The Berlin Airlift: The End of the Blockade. By spring 1949, it was clear that the Soviet blockade of West Berlin had failed. It had not persuaded West Berliners to reject their allies in the West, nor had it prevented the creation of a unified West German state.
  • The Creation of NATO

    The Creation of NATO
    North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949. ... NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security.
  • The Red Scare

    The Red Scare
    The second Red Scare occurred during the start of the Cold War with the Soviet Union after the end of World War II. It lasted around ten years from 1947 to 1957. With the spread of communism in Eastern Europe and China as well as the Korean War, people were scared that communism could infiltrate the United States.
  • The Korean War

    The Korean War
    The Korean War (1950-1953) began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid.
  • Duck and Cover

    Duck and Cover
    Emergency Preparedness: Duck-Cover-Hold. It is important to know how to protect yourself and your family during an earthquake no matter where you happen to be when it occurs. It is also important to practice the things you will need to do during and after an earthquake.
  • The Rosenberg

    The Rosenberg
    The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union).
  • The Warsaw Pact

    The Warsaw Pact
    In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States 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.
  • Eisenhower Doctrine

    Eisenhower Doctrine
    Eisenhower Doctrine, (Jan. 5, 1957), in the Cold War period after World War II, U.S. foreign-policy pronouncement by President Dwight D. Eisenhower promising military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country needing help in resisting communist aggression.
  • U-2 Incident

    U-2 Incident
    An international diplomatic crisis erupted in May 1960 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers (1929-77). Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) was forced to admit to the Soviets that the U.S.