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Search Results Postwar Occupation and Division of Germany
On May 8, 1945, the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces was signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in Berlin, ending World War II for Germany. The German people were suddenly confronted by a situation never before experienced in their history. -
Enactment of 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 Blockade & Airlift
Berlin blockade and airlift, international crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948–49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
Chinese communist leader Mao Zhedong declared the creation of the people's Republic of China (PRC). ... In 1945, the leaders of the Nationalist and communist parties, Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong, met for a series of talks on the formation of a post-war Government. -
Korean War
The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. -
Vietnam War
The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. -
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt led by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement. It was against the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The revolt took place between 1953 and 1959. ... He was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro. -
Formation of the Eastern Bloc.
The Soviet Union, using the influence it had gained through the war, established and enforced communist rule and created an alliance of countries on its eastern borders that stood as a buffer between the Western world and itself -- a formation that became known as the "Eastern Bloc." -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Fifty years ago, shortly before midnight on 16 April 1961, a group of some 1,500 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the CIA launched an ill-fated invasion of Cuba from the sea in the Bay of Pigs. The plan was to overthrow Fidel Castro and his revolution. -
Building the Berlin Wall
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight, on 13 August 1961. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. 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. -
Prague Spring
Dubcek's effort to establish “communism with a human face” was celebrated across the country, and the brief period of freedom became known as the Prague Spring. But on August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union answered Dubcek's reforms with invasion of Czechoslovakia by 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops. -
Soviet War in Afghanistan
The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980. At the end of December 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and immediately assumed complete military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Tiananmen Square is located in the center of Beijing, the capital of China. In 1989, after several weeks of demonstrations, Chinese troops entered Tiananmen Square on June 4 and fired on civilians. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. ... The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
As the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism.
