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Iron curtain
boundaries that seperated the warsaw pact countries from the NATO countries from about 1945 until the end of the cold war. -
Period: to
Cold War
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marshall plan
the American program to help europe or the U.S. gave monitary support to help rebuild european economies after the end of ww2 -
berlin airlift
soviets placed a blockade on the allied sector of berlin to starve the population into soviet alliance -
Forming of NATO
the prospect of further communist promted U.S and 11 other western nations to form the NATO -
Forming of warsaw pact
the soviet union and its affiliated communist nations in eastern europe founded a rival alliance, the warsaw pact -
Vietnam War
South Vietnam was an allie of the US and North Vietnam was an allie of the USSR. The US feared if North Vietnam won the war other countries in South Asia would also fall to Communism. -
Sputnik
the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, also referred to as the “Sputnik Crisis”. Although Sputnik was itself harmless, its orbiting scared the people of the US -
The U-2 incident
when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over the airspace of the Soviet Union. -
Bay of pigs
the CIA sponsored American attack of the Cuban government in order to overthrow Fidel Castro. -
Creation of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was constructed 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 -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily,President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was called off. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was knocked down because as Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in 1988 and 1989, new exodus points were opened to East Germans who wanted to flee to the West. -
Dissolution of the USSR
The USSR was formally dissolved by declaration of the Soviet of the Republics and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. This declaration acknowledged the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union following the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.