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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference took place in a Russian resort town in the Crimea from February 4–11, 1945, during World War Two. At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world. -
WWII Ends in Europe
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945. -
U.S. drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
Potsdam Conference
The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. After the Yalta Conference of February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had agreed to meet following the surrender of Germany to determine the postwar borders in Europe. Germany surrendered -
Communist seize power in Poland
The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Soviet Communist dominance over the People's Republic of Poland following World War II. These years, while featuring many improvements in the standards of living in Poland, were marred by social unrest and economic depression. -
Truman Doctrine announced
On March 12, 1947, in a speech before a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asked Congress to grant economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey to help those countries resist Communism. The speech established what became known as the Truman Doctrine, a policy “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” -
Berlin Airlift begins
Following World War II, a delicate balance of power had surfaced between the once united Allies: Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. The opposing economic structures of capitalism and communism emerged triumphant at the end of the war. The two blossoming superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, sought to ensure their permanence by negotiating territorial claims throughout the globe. At the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, Europe and the Far East were partiti -
NATO established
It is often said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. This is only partially true. In fact, the Alliance’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration. -
USSR explodes its first atomic bomb
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb (Russian: Создание советской атомной бомбы) was a top secret research and development program begun during World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the American, British, and Canadian nuclear project. This scientific research was directed by Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, while the military logistics and intelligence efforts were undertaken and managed by NKVD director Lavrentiy Beria. The Soviet Union benefited from high -
USSR explodes its first atomic bomb
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb (Russian: Создание советской атомной бомбы) was a top secret research and development program begun during World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the American, British, and Canadian nuclear project. This scientific research was directed by Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, while the military logistics and intelligence efforts were undertaken and managed by NKVD director Lavrentiy Beria. The Soviet Union benefited from high -
Korean War
The Korean War began as a civil war between North and South Korea, but the conflict soon became international when, under U.S. leadership, the United Nations joined to support South Korea and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entered to aid North Korea. The war left Korea divided and brought the Cold War to Asia. -
Warsaw Pact formed
The Warsaw Pact (formally, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to NATO)[1] was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The founding treaty was established under the initiative of the Soviet Union and signed on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional -
Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba and establishes communism
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Spanish: [fiˈðel ˈkastro]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008, and as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba became a one-party socialist sta -
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos (or Invasión de Playa Girón or Batalla de Girón), was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the revolutionary l -
East Germany builds Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin.[1] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[2] which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall w -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban missile crisis—known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de octubre) or The Missile Scare in Cuba and the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, tr. Karibskiy krizis) in the former USSR—was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict[1] and is also the first documented instance of -
South Vietnam falls to Communist forces
By dawn, communist forces move into Saigon, where they meet only sporadic resistance. The South Vietnamese forces had collapsed under the rapid advancement of the North Vietnamese. The most recent fighting had begun in December 1974, when the North Vietnamese had launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located due north of Saigon along the Cambodian border, overrunning the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975. Despite previous presidential prom -
1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, tr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ɡərbɐˈt͡ɕɵf] ( listen); born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman. He was the seventh and last undisputed leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the country's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991 (titled as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supr -
1989 – Berlin Wall is demolished
The date on which the Wall fell is considered to have been 9 November 1989, but the Wall in its entirety was not torn down immediately. Starting that evening and in the days and weeks that followed, people came to the wall with sledgehammers or otherwise hammers and chisels to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts of it in the process and creating several unofficial border crossings. These people were nicknamed "Mauerspechte" (wall woodpeckers).[77] -
1991 - The Soviet Union is abolished. Boris Yeltsin becomes President of Russia.
The Soviet Union had its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deposed the imperial autocracy. The majority faction of the Social Democratic Labour Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, then led a second revolution which overthrew the provisional government and established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, beginning a civil war between pro-revolution Reds and counter-revolution Whites. The Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire and organized workers an
