-
China's Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war in China fought between forces loyal to the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China, and forces loyal to the Communist Party of China -
End of WWII
Japan surrenders, ending World War II -
United Nations Formed
The United Nations came into existance when the Charter was ratified -
Churchill Delivers Iron Curtain Speech
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” -
Truman Doctrine
With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
Marshall Plan
President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
Berlin Airlift
For more than a year, hundreds of American, British and French cargo planes ferried provisions from Western Europe to the Tempelhof (in the American sector), Gatow (in the British sector) and Tegel (in the French sector) airfields in West Berlin -
NATO Formed
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. -
USSR's First Atomic Bomb Test
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. -
Period: to
Korean War
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 -
H-Bomb
The United States conducted its first nuclear test of a fusion device, or “hydrogen bomb,” at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower Elected
American presidential election held on November 4, 1952, in which Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower easily defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. -
Death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow. -
SEATO Formed
The United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO. -
Warsaw Pact Formed
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Period: to
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
On January 5, 1957, in response to the increasingly tense situation in the Middle East, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a proposal to a joint session of the U.S. Congress calling for a new and more proactive American policy in the region. -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite -
Castro Takes Over Cuba
Fidel Castro takes control of Cuba -
Francis Gary Powers Shot Down
The pilot of an American U-2 spyplane was shot down while flying though Soviet airspace. Powers ejected and parachuted safely to the ground, where he was captured by the KGB, and held for interrogation. -
John F. Kennedy Elected
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. -
Period: to
Berlin Wall
The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. -
Period: to
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba -
JFK Assassinated
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. -
Lyndon Johnson
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Johnson was sworn in as president later that day aboard Air Force One, and immediately reassured a shocked and grieving nation that he would make Kennedy’s progressive vision for America a reality. -
MAD Plan
Mutual assured destruction, or MAD, is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.
(Exact date unknown) -
Richard Nixon
Eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president. -
NASA's First Moon Landing
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon. -
SALT
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement on May 26, 1972, in Moscow. -
Gerald Ford
America’s 38th president, Gerald Ford took office on August 9, 1974, following the resignation of President Richard Nixon, who left the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. -
Jimmy Carter
The United States presidential election of 1976 was the 48th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1976. The winner was the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate, over the incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate. -
Soviets Invade Afghanistan
On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, under the pretext of upholding the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978. -
Miracle on Ice
The "Miracle on Ice" is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men's ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22. The United States national team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union national team, which had won the gold medal in six of the seven previous Olympic games. -
U.S. Boycott Summer Olympics
On this day in 1980, President Jimmy Carter announces that the U.S. will boycott the Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Moscow that summer. The announcement came after the Soviet Union failed to comply with Carter’s February 20, 1980, deadline to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. -
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989 -
STAR WARS - Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
George H. W. Bush
merican presidential election held on Nov. 8, 1988, in which Republican George Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis. -
Soviets Leave Afghanistan
The Soviet withdrawal was completed on Feb. 15, 1989, and Afghanistan returned to nonaligned status. -
Tiananmen Square Incident
Series of protests and demonstrations in China in the spring of 1989 that culminated on the night of June 3–4 with a government crackdown on the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. -
Gorbachev Elected President of Soviet Union
The Congress of People’s Deputies elects General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the new president of the Soviet Union. -
Soviet Union Falls
On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. -
Boris Yeltsin
Presidential elections were held in Russia on 16 June 1996, with a second round on 3 July. The result was a victory for the incumbent President Boris Yeltsin, who ran as an independent.
