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HUAC
investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. -
Truman Doctrine
"free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures" -
Marshall Plan
proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
Berlin Airlift
began with 32 flights by US Air Force C-47s delivering 80 tons of provisions to the Tempelhof Airport -
Nato Formation
NATO signed by 12 Nations -
Era of McCarthyism Begins
McCarthy delivers speech in Wheeling, West Virginia and displays a list of 205 Communists in the State Department apparently harbored by Communist sympathizers in high places. Because his charges seem specific, McCarthy wins national headlines. -
Korean War
Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet (North Korean) and U.S. (South Korean) zones of occupation. In 1948 rival governments were established: The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the South and the People's Democratic Republic of Korea in the North. -
Rosenburg Executions
Found guilty of relaying U.S. military secrets to the Soviets, the Rosenbergs were the first U.S. civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage. -
Vietnam War
after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam. Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap trounced the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam. -
WarSaw Pact Formation
the Soviet Union institutionalized its East European alliance system when it gathered together representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania in Warsaw to sign the multilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, which was identical to their existing bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union -
Sputnik 1 Launched
the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
unsuccessful attempt by United States-backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the government of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. -
berlin wall
Khrushchev renewed the crisis over Berlin during a meeting with the new American president, John Kennedy, in Vienna. Khrushchev again threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany that would end existing four-power agreements guaranteeing Western access to West Berlin. -
First man in space
April 12 was already a huge day in space history twenty years before the launch of the first shuttle mission -
First american in space
blasted off in his Freedom 7 capsule atop a Mercury-Redstone rocket -
Cuban Missle Crisis
President John F. Kennedy informed the world that the Soviet Union was building secret missile bases in Cuba, a mere 90 miles off the shores of Florida. -
First man on the moon
Neil Armstrong was the eldest of three children of Stephen and Viola Engel Armstrong. His family moved several times before they settled in Wapakoneta when Neil was 13. Neil fell in love with airplanes at the age of 6 when he took his first flight, in a Ford Tri-Motor “Tin Goose.” He worked at numerous jobs around town and at the nearby airport so he could start taking flying lessons at the age of 15 and on his 16th birthday he was issued a pilot's license.
