Cold War Timeline

By xxthehauntingxx

  • President Franklin D. Roosevelt suffers a stroke

    US President Franklin D. Roosevelt suffers a stroke and dies while on vacation

  • The Potsdam Conference

    Is a trial for nazi war criminals

  • Hiroshima

    US President Truman gives permission for the world's first military use of an atomic weapon against the Japanese city of Hiroshima in an attempt to bring the only remaining theater of war from the Second World War in the Pacific to a swift closure

  • Nagasaki

    President Truman gives permission for the world's second and last military use of an atomic weapon against the Japanese city of Nagasaki in order to try to secure a swift Japanese unconditional surrender in the end of the Second World War.

  • Chinese Civil war

    Chinese Civil War resumes between Communist and Nationalist forces.

  • Restatement of Policy on Germany in Stuttgart

    In a speech known as the Restatement of Policy on Germany in Stuttgart, James F. Byrnes, United States Secretary of State repudiates the Morgenthau Plan and gives Germans hope for the future. He states the US intention to keep troops in Europe indefinitely and expresses US approval of the territorial annexation of 29% of pre-war Germany, but does not condone further claims.

  • The Communist Party takes control in Czechoslovakia

    The Communist Party takes control in Czechoslovakia, after President Edvard Beneš accepts the resignation of all non-communist ministers.

  • Berlin Blockade begins

  • Berlin Blockade ends

  • Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt

  • Korean War begins

  • Federal Civil Defense Administration established

  • Rosenberg executions

  • Korean War ends

  • KGB established

  • Warsaw Pact formed

  • Sputnik launched into orbit

  • Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro

  • Soviet Union reveals that U.S. spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory

  • John F. Kennedy elected President

  • Bay of Pigs invasion

  • Construction of Berlin Wall begins

  • Tsar Bomb

    The most powerful thermonuclear device ever tested

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified

  • US military build up to defend South Vietnam. North Vietnam