Cold War

By margareto

  • Mao Zedong takes control of China

    Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China of which he was chairman. Mao directed the reconstruction of China following the model of the USSR, launching massive campaigns to root out “counterrevolutionaries”. Many Chinese citizens were imprisoned, exiled, tortured or executed

  • Korean War

    The Korean War was fought between North Korea (along with the Chinese about halfway through the war), and the United Nations with South Korea. It was a fight against communism. It prevented communism from spreading into South Korea. No other gains were made, only many casualty losses.

  • Fidel Castro Takes Over Cuba

    He led 160 troops into Sanitago capturing weapons and supplies.

  • Vietnam War

    The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War. It was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1, 1955 to April 30, 1975 when Saigon fell.

  • Soviet Invasion of Hungary

    A Budapest student rally in support of Polish efforts to win autonomy from the Soviet Union sparked mass demonstrations. The police attacked, and the demonstrators fought back, tearing down symbols of Soviet domination and HWP rule, sacking the party newspaper's offices and shouting in favor of free elections, national independence, and the return of Imre Nagy to power.

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion

    1300 exiles, armed with U.S. weapons, landed at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the southern coast of Cuba. Hoping to find support from the local population, they intended to cross the island to Havana. It was evident from the first hours of fighting, however, that the exiles were likely to lose. President Kennedy had the option of using the U.S. Air Force against the Cubans but decided against it.

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    An American U2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. Because he did not want Cuba and the Soviet Union to know that he had discovered the missiles, Kennedy met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the problem.

  • Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

    Warsaw Pact forces--including troops from Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union--invaded Czechoslovakia. Approximately 500,000 troops, mostly from the Soviet Union, poured across the borders in a blitzkrieg-like advance.

  • SALT Treaty Talks

    It refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union - the Cold War superpowers - on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. A subsequent treaty was START.

  • NIxon Visits China

    President Nixon arrived in Peking for a seven-day stay.

  • Revolution in Iran

    It refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy (Pahlavi dynasty) under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution.

  • Civil War in Nicaragua

    Civil war starts with thousands of deaths, until in June 1979 Sandinista troops capture town after town throughout Nicaragua.

  • Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

    An ongoing Soviet military buildup, heavily-armed elements of a Soviet airborne brigade were airlifted into Kabul, Afghanistan, to violently overthrow the regime of President Hafizollah Amin. Within hours after the beginning of this Trojan Horse-type operation, Soviet troops had overwhelmed the elite presidential guard, captured Amin, execut ed him along with several members of his family for crimes against the peoplell and seized control of the capital.

  • Iran/Iraq War

    The Iran-Iraq War was multifaceted and included religious schisms, border disputes, and political differences. Conflicts contributing to the outbreak of hostilities ranged from centuries-old Sunni-versus-Shia and Arab-versus-Persian religious and ethnic disputes, to a personal animosity between Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini. Above all, Iraq launched the war in an effort to consolidate its rising power in the Arab world and to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state.

  • Mikhail Gorbachev takes control of USSR

    The Soviet Union was named "the evil empire." Two years later, at the first arms summit in Geneva, Gorbachev put a human face on the enemy for the President.

  • Soviet Union Falls Apart

    The world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism.