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Gouzenko Affair
Igor Gouzenko was a Soviet spy who collected information about a number of Canadian officials and realized Joseph Stalins plan to steal nuclear plans. He brought evidence to the news rooms and there was enough information gathered to arest 22 agents and 15 soviet spys. -
Formation of the United Nations
The U.N. was formed when during the Second World War, representitives of 26 nation pledged their Government to continue fighting together against the Axis Powers -
Formation of NATO
The possibility of further communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and other communst nations founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact in 1955. -
The Use of the Atomic Bomb
The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, at the SemiPalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. This event ends America's monopoly of atomic weaponry and launches the Cold War. This is also where the arms race began. -
Korean War
the Korean War began when around 75,000 of North Korea's Army poured across the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. The war ended in June 1953. The Korean Peninsula is still divided today. -
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was very long and very costly the war pitted the Communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and the United States. The War ended after USA's withdrawal in 1973, and the unification of Vietnam under Communist control two years later. Around 3 million people, including 58,000 Americans were killed in the war. Canada Helped even though they weren't asked to. -
Formation of the Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was formed when the Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was created as a rival for NATO. -
Suez Crisis
The Suez Criss was a military and political confrontation in Egypt that threatend to divide the United States and Great Britain. Lester B. Pearson, won a Nobel Peace Prize for using the world's first, large-scale United NAtions peacekeeping force to handle the situation, he later became the prime minister of Canada, -
Formation of NORAD
An agreement was announced that a new organization was to be formed between Canada and the United states called the North American Air Defence Agreement, or NORAD. -
The Cancellation of the Avro Arrow
The Avro Arrow was a CF-105 jet fighter that was developed by A.V. Roe of Canada, it was faster and more advanced than any other comparable aircraft. It was astonishing but the costs of development kept mounting, the original cost per aircraft was $2 million and quickly rose to $12 million. The inability to sell the Arrow to Europe or the US causes the project to be cancelled on February 20, 1959. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear soviet missiles on Cuba, only 90 miles from U.S. shores. On October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy told Americans about the missiles. The Crisis was avoided when John Kennedy agreed to Nikita Khrushchev's offer to remove the missiles in exchange for the U.S promising not to invade Cuba, Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. Missiles from Turkey. -
SALT Treaty
Leonid Brezhnev the Soviet General Secretary and Nixon signed the ABMTreaty and interim SALT agreement in Moscow. This was the first time during the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. -
The Strategic Defence Initiative
President Ronald Reagan initiated a program called the Strategic Defence Initiative, the intent of the program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, especially the Soviet Union. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they feel like it, Some people crossed into West Berlin and others brought hammers and picks to the wall and begin slowly chipping away at the wall. -
Breakup of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union fell mostly due to the amount of radical reforms that Mikhal Gorbachev, the Soviet president implemented during his six years as the leader of the USSR. He resigned from his job on December 25 it was a peaceful ending to a long, bloody, scary part of world history.
