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Potsdamn Conference
Conference at the end of the war in Europe between the U.S. , Russia, and the UK. Discussion of postwar Germany, Stalin promise free election in Eest Europe. -
Atomic Bomb
The atomic bomb, and nuclear bombs, are powerful weapons that use nuclear reactions as their source of explosive energy. Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -
Long telegram
In February 1946, George F. Kennan's “Long Telegram” from Moscow helped articulate the U.S. government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets and became the basis for the U.S. “containment” strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. -
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. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned with the Soviet Union. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood Ten is a 1950 American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklisting. The film was directed by John Berry. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. -
Berlin Airlift
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. ... The Soviet action was in response to the refusal of American and British officials to allow Russia more say in the economic future of Germany. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is an international political and military organization with the aim of guaranteeing the freedom and security of its members through political and military means. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of the United States, Great Britain, and France to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. -
First Soviet Bomb Test
First Soviet Test. The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, known in the West as Joe-1 on Aug 29 1949, at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
The war was a fight for legitimacy as the government of China. The war began in April 1927 because of the Northern Expedition and mostly ended in 1950. Some people say the war has not ended, but no large battles have started since that year. -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was accused of passing secret military information to the Soviet Union and he was sentenced to five years in prison. The Rosenbergs were accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets and were both convicted and executed. -
Rosenberg trial
On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. -
Korean War & Korean Armistice
After three years of a bloody and frustrating war, the United States, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea agree to an armistice, bringing the fighting of the Korean War to an end. The armistice ended America's first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war.” -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the decisive engagement in the First Indochina War (1946–54). It consisted of a struggle between French and Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist and nationalist) forces for control of a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954. The Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power to NATO. -
Hungarian Revolution
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. -
U2 Incident
U-2 Incident, (1960), the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. ... Kennedy was briefed on a plan by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) developed during the Eisenhower administration to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their homeland. -
Berlin Wall
The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep so-called 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. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Assassination of JFK
Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot from a nearby building by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
1968 riots at Democratic convention
During the evening of August 28, 1968, with the police riot in full swing on Michigan Avenue in front of the Democratic party's convention headquarters, the Conrad Hilton hotel, television networks broadcast live as the anti-war protesters began the now-iconic chant "The whole world is watching". -
Kent State
On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Vietnam, and further galvanized the anti-war movement. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
All parties to the conflict, including South Vietnam, signed the final agreement in Paris on January 27. As it turned out, only America honored the cease-fire. ... A little over 2 years later, 30 North Vietnamese divisions conquered the South and restored peace in Vietnam. -
Fall of Saigon
The phrase 'the fall of Saigon' refers to the takeover of the city by the Viet Cong two years later on 30 April 1975. ... The US was forced to abandon its embassy in the city and evacuate more than 7,000 US citizens and South Vietnamese by helicopter. The takeover forced the South Vietnamese to surrender and end the war. -
Reagan elected
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1980. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. A wide array of advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, particle beam weapons, and ground- and space-based missile systems were studied, along with various sensor, command and control, and high-performance computer systems that would be needed to control a system consisting of hundreds of combat centers and satellites spanning the entire globe. -
‘Tear down this wall’ speech
Reagan's stark challenge to tear down the Berlin Wall gave shape to increasing international pressure on Moscow to make good on its promises of openness and reform. The wall, which had become a symbol of Soviet oppression, came down two years later, on November 9, 1989. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
In 1989, political changes in Eastern Europe and civil unrest in Germany put pressure on the East German government to loosen some of its regulations on travel to West Germany. ... The fall of the Berlin Wall was the first step towards German reunification. -
Iron Curtain Speech
Iron Curtain speech, speech delivered by former British prime minister Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, in which he stressed the necessity for the United States and Britain to act as the guardians of peace and stability against the menace of Soviet communism, which had lowered an “iron curtain”.