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Following the defeat of the Axis powers, an ideological and political rivalry between the United States and the USSR gave way to the start of the Cold War -
In a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term "Cold War" to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union -
Hollywood blacklist, list of media workers ineligible for employment because of alleged communist or subversive ties -
Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia -
Truman's Loyalty Program created to catch Cold War spies -
Brussels Pact organized to protect Europe from communism -
NATO ratified -
Russia tested its first atomic bomb -
Communist Mao Zedong takes control of China and establishes the People's Republic of China -
Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt and loyalty tests -
Truman approved H-bomb development -
Korean War begins. Stalin supports North Korea who invade South Korea equipped with Soviet weapons. United Nations and the United States sent troops and military aid. -
U.S. President Harry S. Truman fires Douglas MacArthur from command of US forces in Korea due to him demanding nuclear weapons to be used on the enemy -
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States sign the ANZUS Treaty. This compels the three countries to cooperate on matters of defense and security in the Pacific -
President Harry S. Truman signs the Mutual Security Act, announcing to the world, and its communist powers in particular, that the U.S. was prepared to provide military aid to "free peoples" -
Greece and Turkey join NATO -
The United Kingdom successfully tests its first atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane. The test makes the UK the world's third nuclear power -
Dwight Eisenhower defeats Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential election -
Stalin dies, setting off a power struggle to succeed him. NATO debates possibility of a fresh start -
The Cuban Revolution begins as the 26th of July Movement lead by Fidel Castro attempts to overthrow the government of Fulgencio Batista -
Nikita Khrushchev becomes leader of the Soviet Communist Party -
The Geneva Agreements were signed. As part of the agreement, the French agreed to withdraw their troops from northern Vietnam. Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, pending elections within two years to choose a president and reunite the country. -
The U.S. launches the world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus. -
U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement is signed by the United States and Japan -
The Warsaw Pact is founded in Eastern Europe and includes East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. It acts as the Communist military counterpart to NATO -
President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of the United Kingdom, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France, known as the 'Big Four', attend the Geneva Summit. Also in attendance was Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union -
The official beginning of the Vietnam War -
Hungarians revolt against the Soviet dominated government. They are crushed by the Soviet military, which reinstates a Communist government -
Suez Crisis: France, Israel, and the United Kingdom attack Egypt with the goal of removing Nasser from power -
Dwight Eisenhower wins re-election, defeating Adlai Stevenson for the second time in the 1956 presidential election -
The Eisenhower Doctrine commits the United States to defending Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan from Communist influence -
Sputnik satellite launched. The same day the Avro Arrow is revealed -
NATO holds its first summit in Paris, France. It is the first time NATO leaders have met together since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949 -
NASA was founded -
The U.S. Army launches Explorer 1, the first American artificial satellite -
The Soviet Union demands that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Berlin -
Fidel Castro wins the Cuban Revolution and becomes the dictator of Cuba. In the next several years Cuban-inspired guerrilla movements spring up across Latin America -
During the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev openly debate the capacities of each Superpower. This conversation is known as the Kitchen Debate -
Member states vote again against the admission of China to the United Nations -
Sino-Soviet split: the Chinese leadership, angered at being treated as the "junior partner" to the Soviet Union, declares its version of Communism superior and begin to compete with the Soviets for influence, thus adding a third dimension to the Cold War -
Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon both pledged to strengthen American military forces and promised a tough stance against the Soviet Union and international communism -
American pilot Francis Gary Powers is shot down in his U-2 spy plane while flying at high altitude over the Soviet Union, resulting in the U-2 Incident, an embarrassment for President Eisenhower -
John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States -
Bay of Pigs Invasion: A CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by counter-revolutionaries ends in failure -
Kennedy meets with Khrushchev in Vienna -
An American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba -
American pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for senior KGB spy Colonel Rudolf Abel -
The Soviets secretly been installing military bases, including nuclear weapons, on Cuba, some 90 miles from the US mainland. Kennedy orders a naval blockade of the island that intensifies the crisis and brings the US and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war. In the end, both sides compromise -
Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy agree to establish a hot line to use in a Cold War crisis -
Soviet Union, United States and Britain sign a nuclear test-ban treaty -
John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in Dallas. There has been some speculation over whether communist countries or even CIA were involved in the assassination, but those theories remain controversial. Kennedy's vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President of the United States -
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in New York, and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, announce simultaneously plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons -
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson claims that North Vietnamese naval vessels had fired on two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Although there was a first attack, it was later shown that American vessels had entered North Vietnamese territory first, and that the claim of second attack had been unfounded. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident leads to the open involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -
China tests its first atomic bomb. The test makes China the world's fifth nuclear power -
Winston Churchill dies -
US and South Vietnamese planes commence Operation Rolling Thunder, an ongoing bombing campaign against military and industrial targets in North Vietnam -
U.S. combat troops begin arriving in Vietnam -
Charles De Gaulle calls for United States forces to leave Vietnam -
France withdraws its troops from NATO -
United States government admit to using chemical weapons in North Vietnam