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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference took place in a Russian resort town in the Crimea from February 4-11, 1945, during World War Two. At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world. -
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Cold War
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Russia enters war against Japan
The Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army. -
World War II ends
The War ended with the unconditional surrender by Germany and then the German surrender to the Soviets. Japan also surrendered to the U.S. after two atomic bombs were dropped by the U.S.A. on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan. -
The Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill's speech better known by as "Iron Curtain" speech, is the official starting of the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the American program to aid Europe, in which the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism -
Berlin blockade begins
The Western allies began moving towards consolidating their occupation zones in Western Germany into a single independent German state. -
Soviets explode first atomic bomb
The Soviet Union conducted it first weapon test of an implosion-type nuclear device, codename First Lightning on 29 August 1949, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR. With the success of this test, the Soviet Union became the second nation after the United States to detonate a nuclear device. -
Mao Zedong takes control of China
Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary who took control of China in 1949, the country was in terrible shape after its entire gold reserves were taken away to Taiwan by the Nationalists. -
Korean War begins
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Rosenberg executions
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass were transferred to the New York State-run Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining for execution. The couple was executed at sundown in the electric chair on June 19, 1953. -
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The founding treaty was established under the initiative of the Soviet Union and signed on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw. -
Khrushchev demands withdrawal of troops from Berlin
Khrushchev insisted that the military occupation of Berlin, should now come to an end. Khrushchev further proposed that Berlin should become a "free city". -
Fidel Castro takes control of Cuba
On October 3rd, Fidel Castro, forcefully took over control of Cuba. Him, his younger brother, and over 130 skilled army men took over the power. For over 5 decades now, Castro has been leading Cuba as a dictator. He made many changes to the Cuban culture, including agriculture, the industry, and seized all American-owned businesses and farms. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was both the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to 1989 and the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War. -
Berlin border closed
The border between East and West Germany began to close with the placement of barbed wire and machine-gun nests. Yet the Berlin border remained open until 1961 due to an agreement of 1949. In its continued use as an escape route, an estimated 2,750,000 East Europeans crossed over into Western territory, despite East Germany's attempts at regulation.
On August 12, 1961, the decision was made by the East German government to close the Berlin border. -
President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas
President John F. Kennedy was shot as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas. -
National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society. -
Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated.
On April 4, 1968, a shot rang out as King stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. After emergency chest surgery, King was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Hospital -
Apollo 11
Was the most significant event during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, This scientific breakthrough was the greatest accomplishment of the century, assuring the American people that the US was superior in their technology as well as their defense weapons. -
Warsaw Pacts ends
After 36 years in existence, the Warsaw Pact the military alliance between the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites comes to an end. The action was yet another sign that the Soviet Union was losing control over its former allies and that the Cold War was falling apart. -
Cold War ends
In late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its component republics. With stunning speed, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end.
