-
Russian Communist Revolution
-The Russian Revolution took place during the final phase of World War I. It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, replacing Russia's traditional monarchy with the world's first Communist state. (New leader made different changes- Cold War)
-The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union during the cold war. -
Treaty of Versailles
-June 28 1919
- Paris, France
-The TOV was the most important of the peace treaties that had brought World War I to an end.
-The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
-The build up to the Cold War had been heating up for about 25 years due to the resolution of the Versailles Peace Conference. -
League of Nations
-Jan 10 1920
-The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I.
-After the failure of the League of Nations, the establishment of the United Nations was the second attempt at creating a collective security system within only a few decades. Yet, during the Cold War, collective security was going to fail once again, as most of the world was divided into two blocs. -
MAD
-Mutual Assured Destruction
-Began to emerge at the end of the Kennedy administration.
-Reflects the idea that one's population could best be protected by leaving it vulnerable so long as the other side faced comparable vulnerabilities. In short: Whoever shoots first, dies second.
-Concept placed into the Cold War to avoid possible destructive events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. -
General Assembly
-Founded in 1945
-The number of resolutions passed by the General Assembly each year has climbed to more than 300, there have been sharp disagreements among members on several issues, such as those relating to the Cold War. -
Yalta Conference
-Feb 4 1945- Feb 11 1945
-The Yalta Conference helped lead to the Cold War by giving the Soviet Union control over Eastern Europe. This led to the Cold War because it made the West feel that the USSR was bent on expanding communism.
-Tensions over European issues, like the fate of Poland foreshadowed the crumbling of the Grand Alliance that had developed between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union during World War II and hinted at the Cold War to come. -
United Nations
-The United Nations quickly became a Cold War battleground between communist and noncommunist countries. Since both the United States and Soviet Union held vetoes, the Security Council could not act without their joint permission. -
Nuremberg Trials
-1945-1949. Nuremberg, Germany
-The Nuremberg Trials were a series of 13 trials in which the Allies prosecuted German military leaders, political officials, industrialists, and financiers for crimes they had committed during world war II which caused much tension during the Cold War between US and the Soviets. -
Iron Curtain Speech
-Churchill wrote this speech to inform Americans that there is a divide between East and West Europe. He spoke with concern by condemning the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declaring, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent.”
-This shows the anger and constant competition between Democracy and Communism that set Eastern and Western Europe against each other. The Cold War was caused by the tensions between governments. -
Baruch Plan
- June 15, 1946
- A proposal by the United States government to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) during its first meeting. -The failure of the plan to gain acceptance resulted in a dangerous nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
-
Truman Doctrine
-March 12 1947
-President Harry S. Truman presented this address before a joint session of Congress. His message, known as the Truman Doctrine, asked Congress for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Turkey and Greece.
-The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
-April 3 1948
-The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of WWII.
-Tensions grew between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Cold War so Truman initiated the Truman Doctrine to aid to countries suffering from the WWII. The Marshall Plan was later initiated by Truman due to slow progress of Europe's economic development. -
Berlin Airlift
-Berlin, Germany (during blockade June 24 1948- May 12 1949)
-The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control.
-Was considered a symbol of the Cold War because the Berlin airlift represented the division between the soviet union and its allies among the communist nations and the United States. -
NATO created
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization
-Is a government military alliance between several North American and European states based on the signed North Atlantic Treaty.
-NATO's primary purpose was to unify and strengthen Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies which was going on during the Cold War. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
-A group of revolutionaries in southern China led a successful revolt against the Qing Dynasty, establishing in its place, the Republic of China and ending the imperial system.
-The connection between the Chinese Communist Revolution to the Cold War is the spread of communism to China. -
Joseph McCarthy Speech
-He declared that he had a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party in the government. When put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, it allowed him to launch even larger investigations of the alleged communist people in the federal government. He questioned witnesses which most often came to a violation of their civil rights.
-The rough atmosphere of the Cold War were enough to convince many Americans that their government was packed with traitors and spies. -
Korean War
-June 25 1950- July 27 1953
-Korean Peninsula
-The tensions came to a head in Korea. Overshadowed by WWII, the Korean War has often been called America's "forgotten war," though like Vietnam it was part of a larger Cold War struggle to extinguish communism. In 1950, North Korean communist troops invaded South Korea, which was an American ally. -
Warsaw Pact
-The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the NATO, a collective security alliance concluded between the United States, Canada and Western European nations in 1949. The Warsaw Pact supplemented existing agreements.
-The Warsaw Pact, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. -
Sputnik Launched
- 7:28 PM -The Soviet Union launched the earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1. -As a result, the launch of Sputnik served to intensify the arms race and raise Cold War tensions due to the competition standpoint between the US and the Soviets.
-
Fidel Castro Proclaims Communist Cuba
-A revolution led by Fidel Castro made Cuba a communist country. Castro reduced illiteracy, got rid of racism and improved public health care, but he ended economic/political freedoms of the people. Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military aid after they made diplomatic ties, becoming an ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
-The announcement of Fidel Castro being a Marxist-Leninist sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the two nations. -
Nuclear Deterrent
-Developed and deployed several types of delivery systems for attacking the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons.
-During the Cold War, United States and Soviet Union each built a stockpile of nuclear weapons
-Soviet policy rested on the conviction that a nuclear war could be fought and won
-The United States adopted nuclear deterrence, the credible threat of retaliation to forestall enemy attack. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
-April 17 1961
-1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. tried to take out Fidel Castro. The invasion is considered part of the Cold War because the United States was trying to prevent communism from taking hold in America. -
Building of Berlin Wall begins
-August 13 1961
-In an effort to branch into the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to divide East-and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. -
Berlin Wall (between construction and fall)
-Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989
-Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations.
-As the Cold War began to unravel across Eastern Europe, the East Berlin's Communist Party established a change in the city's relations with the West. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
-October 16,1962- October 28, 1962
-was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba.
-This was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. -
U.S. sends troops to Vietnam
-March 8 1965
-North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam were involved. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union -
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
-Treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, weapons technology, promote cooperation in uses of nuclear energy, and achieving nuclear, general and complete disarmament.
-NPT didn't fully prevent nuclear proliferation
-Context of the Cold War arms race and mounting international concern about the consequences of nuclear war, the treaty was a success for advocates of arms control. -
Apollo 11
-July 16 1969- July 24 1969
-The spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle which was a result of the “space race” showing the better country.
-The U.S got to the moon first and won the pace race which raised their hopes in the Cold War. -
Kent State Shootings
-Students at Kent State University protested the bombing of Cambodia which caused the United States military forces to clash with Ohio National Guardsmen on the University campus. The Guardsmen shot and killed four students on the campus
-The Kent State Shootings became the focal point of a nation deeply divided by the Vietnam War which than affected the Cold War because it angered the US that the Soviets were helping their enemy. -
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I (SALT I)
-May 26, 1972
-Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon, meet in Moscow to sign the SALT agreements. At the time, these agreements were the most far-reaching attempts to control nuclear weapons.
-Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement on May 26, 1972, in Moscow. For the first time during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. -
Margaret Thatcher
-Prime Minister of United Kingdom 1979 to 1990
-Leader of the Conservative Party 1975 to 1990.
-Believed that anti-Communism was morally wrong.
-When she left office the Berlin Wall had fallen and Eastern Europe was liberated
-A year later, the Soviet Union crumbled into the dustbin of history.
-Democracy and freedom were on the advance.
-When she came into power many in the West had come to believe that the Cold War couldn't and shouldn't be won. -
Fall of Saigon
-South Vietnam
-The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. -
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II)
-President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT-II agreement dealing with limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons. Although it resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States Senate did not to ratify the treaty due to to the Soviet war in Afghanistan which took place later that year. The Soviet legislature also did not ratify it.
-The treaty which never formally went into effect, proved to be one of the most controversial U.S.-Soviet agreements of the Cold War. -
Soviets invade Afghanistan
-Dec. 25 1979- Feb. 15 1989
-The Soviet Union feared the loss of its communist proxy in Afghanistan so the they sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and gained complete military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country.
-This was the Soviet 40th Army that invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan right in the midst of the Cold War. -
Lech Walesa
-1980-1990 led communist poland
-Lech Wałęsa is a retired Polish politician. He co-founded and headed the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union.
- Walesa led an anti-Communist organization, formed in 1980, which fought for political, economic and civil rights to improve conditions. The collapse of Communism brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, as democracy and prosperity rose in Poland. -
Deng Xiaoping
-In office 13 September 1982 to 2 November 1987
-Chinese revolutionary and politician. He was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989.
- Deng had once again become a leading figure in the party at the end of the Cold War era when the north ended up winning the civil war against the Kuomintang. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
-The Berlin Wall divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The wall symbolized the lack of freedom under communism. It symbolized the Cold War and divide between the communist Soviet bloc and the democratic, capitalist bloc. Berlin Wall has been broken for the decision to open borders between East&West Berlin.
-During the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans led to the democratic West. Destruction of wall marks end of Cold War for American public. -
Pope John Paul II
-Holy See–Soviet Union relations were marked by a long-standing persecution of the Catholic Church by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, criticized throughout the Cold War. ... In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II's diplomatic policies were cited as one of the principal factors that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. -
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) 1
-Signed on July 31, 1991
-entered into force on December 5, 1994.
-Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the USSR on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.
- The talks, which began in 1982, spanned a period of three eventful decades that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the major crises of the early 21st century. -
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) 2
-a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.
-It was signed by United States President George H. W.
-The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of arms control.
-The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II.
