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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union -
In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city -
North Korea attacked South Korea ended in 1953 -
The Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO. In reaction to the integration of West Germany into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -
Khrushchev solidified the concept in Soviet foreign policy in 1956 at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The policy arose as an attempt to reduce hostility between the two superpowers, particularly in light of the possibility of nuclear war. -
A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. -
A protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States -
On October 4, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth. The satellite, a 187-pound metal sphere the size of a basketball was launched on a huge rocket and orbited Earth at 29,000 kilometers per hour -
East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans' access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961 -
Around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry -
Leader of the US and Soviet Union had a short 13 day political and military standoff over the installation of nukes on Cuba -
On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague -
The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1994. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification -
Berlin was reinstated as the capital city of united Germany and the Länder of the former German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany in its membership of NATO. -
A military alliance between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites was effectively dissolved on this day in 1991 as Soviet military commanders announced they had relinquished control of Warsaw Pact forces