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Yalta Conference
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Harry S Truman Elected
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Potsdam Conference
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Cold War
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Iron Curtain Speech
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Marshall Plan Announced
A plan proposed by George C. Marshall to provide economic assistance to all European nations that would join in drafting a program for recovery; aided in the recovery of European nations after WWII, kept with the same cold war mentality to stop the spread of communism. -
Berlin Airlift
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NATO Formed
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Communist Revolution in China
Communists under Mao Zedong take control of China.
Mao Zedong announces that the new Chinese government will be “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” After beating rival Chiang. Further showcased cold war tensions of communism. -
Korean War begins
The Korean war was between the North and South which were partitioned as the Soviets controlling the North and the Americans controlling the South. And was initiated when the Soviet North invaded the South. The Korean war was another example of the Soviet influence on the north and increased war damage during the cold war. -
U.S. Troops sent to Vietnam
The U.S. sends "advisors" aka. military tactical units, to observe in Vietnam. The much opposed Vietnam war was caused by the fear of communism spreading throughout the entire country, once again born out of Cold War anti-communism philosophy. -
US Develops Hydrogen Bomb
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Dwight D Eisenhower Elected
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Rosenberg Executions
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Warsaw Pact Formed
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Saigon falls to the North
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Soviet Union develops Hydrogen Bomb
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Sputnik Launched
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Fidel Castro takes over Cuba
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Kitchen Debates
Were interpreter talks between U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and President Nikita Khrushchev at the American National Exhibit on July 24, 1959, in the Soviet capital, Moscow The talks were called the "kitchen debate" because the USA had built a model home (and kitchen) in Moscow. Nixon and Khrushchev debated each other's technology as both countries were still committed to the Cold War with each other. -
US Spy plane shot down over USSR
An incident that highlighted American tensions within the cold war, and increased hostility against the soviets. A suspected espionage plane flies over Soviet airspace and gets destroyed. -
John F Kennedy Elected
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USSR Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is first man to orbit the Earth
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Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs invasion was an unsuccessful CIA operative, to overthrow the Castro dictatorship. Was an event that occurred during the Cold war and proved American futility at the time. A force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, aided by the US government attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. The attempt failed. -
Construction Begins on the Berlin Wall
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Cuban Missile Crisis
A US spy plane reported sighting the construction of a Soviet nuclear missile base in Cuba. President Kennedy set up a naval blockade and demanded the removal of the missiles. War was averted when the Russians agreed on 28th October to remove the weapons. The United States agreed not to invade Cuba. -
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Ratified
The Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963; ratified by the United States Senate on September 24, 1963; and entered into force on October 10, 1963. The treaty prohibited nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. -
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Ratified part2
While not banning tests underground, the treaty prohibited such explosions if they caused "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control" the explosions were conducted. In accepting limitations on testing, the nuclear powers accepted as a common goal "an end to the contamination of man's environment by radioactive substances." -
Lyndon Baines Johnson Elected
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Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin incident, also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. -
Richard M Nixon Elected
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U.S. lands on the moon
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Gerald Ford becomes President
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U.S. Troops leave Vietnam
The United States withdrew from the Vietnam War for several reasons. The Army had to fight in unfamiliar territory, was lacking in morale, were not prepared for the conditions, could not shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and were untrained to respond to guerilla warfare. -
Jimmy E Carter Elected
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SALT II Nuclear Treaty Signed
In June 1979, Carter and Brezhnev met in Vienna and signed the SALT-II agreement. The treaty basically established numerical equality between the two nations in terms of nuclear weapons delivery systems. It also limited the number of MIRV missiles (missiles with multiple, independent nuclear warheads). -
Ronald W Reagan Elected
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Strategic Defense Initiative revealed by Reagan (Star Wars)
Reagan said he wanted to avoid nuclear Armageddon, critics called the Strategic Defense Initiative far-fetched and expensive. It was a plan that read like science fiction: A system armed with an array of space-based X-ray lasers would detect and deflect any nukes headed toward the United States. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the USSR
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George H.W. Bush Elected
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Berlin Wall Falls
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 was a pivotal event in world history that marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and the start of the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterward. -
USSR Dissolved –Cold War Ends
Thirteen months later after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved. President Bush and his chief foreign policy advisers were more pro-active toward Russia and the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Communist monolith than while it was teetering. In a series of summits during the next year with the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Bush pledged $4.5-billion to support economic reform in Russia.