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Former British prime minister Winston Churchill, at Fulton, Missouri, declares that an "Iron Curtain" has descended on Europe. The Iron Curtain, was the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas.
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President Truman announces the Truman Doctrine, informing Congress, "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The Truman Doctrine was a very simple warning clearly made to the USSR – though the country was not mentioned by name – that the USA would intervene to support any nation that was being threatened by a takeover by an armed minority.
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Congress passes the National Security Act, which creates a civilian Secretary of Defense (the first was James Forrestal), a National Security Council, a Central Intelligence Agency.The National Security Act of 1947 mandated a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the U.S. Government. The act created many of the institutions that Presidents found useful when formulating and implementing foreign policy.
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Further increasing tensions over Europe's future, the Soviets begin a blockade of the Western zones in occupied Berlin; the Allied powers would respond with an 11-month airlift to supply the blocked in city. The Berlin Air Lift was a 24 hour a day operation. Allied planes were constantly dropping off supplies to the city.
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The NATO treaty is signed.The organization constituted a system of collective defence whereby its member states agreed to mutually defend in response to an attack by any external party. The countries included in the treaty were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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The USSR explodes its first atomic bomb.
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The Communist Party completes its triumph in the Chinese Civil War, as Mao Zedong assumes power.
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http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/weapons/mk15.jpg Truman announces that the United States will build the hydrogen bomb.
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North Korea invades South Korea; the UN invokes its collective security provisions to aid the South; and the United States send troops. The war will end in stalemate nearly three years later.
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Republican Dwight Eisenhower inaugurated President.
