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The cold War duration
The duration of the cold war was very long and heated indeed. -
Fidel Castro in Power
When Castro came to power in 1959, he quickly converted Cuba to communism. The U.S had failed at preventing him from becoming a big threat. Cuba, as a communist country scared the U.S because not only had containment failed there, but Cuba is very close to the U.S. so the prospect of communist influence scared them. The Cubans were holding nuclear missiles, that may have used as a form of brinkmanship in the famous Cuban Missile Crisis. It scared the world and put it on the brink of nuclear war. -
The Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, the soviets, almost overnight, put up a wall surrounding Berlin, made of concrete and barbed wire. This cut off people from entering or leaving the area. Eventually the U.S. used a method called the Berlin Air Lifts. For over a year, the U.S. dropped supplies, every minute of every day, of all kinds to the people of Berlin. What was especially smart was that the U.S. often filled it with candy to influence the children, painting America in a more positive light for all. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
In April of 1961, just a few years after Castro had taken control in Cuba, the CIA had taken 1,400 people who had fled from Cuba, and trained them to try to overthrow Castro. This had massively failed, because the invaders had surrendered in less that 24 hours. Only 114 died and the rest were taken prisoner. This invasion tensed the relation between Cuba and the U.S. and stemmed into very recently. This made people nervous that war could've broken out. -
1972 Olympics:Basketball Game
It was the 4th quarter, and only a few seconds remained on the clock. The U.S. team was behind the soviets by one. The Americans were fouled and received two free throws. The first one was made to tie the game 49-49. As the player, Collins, started to shoot the second shot, the air horn blew, the play was never stopped. The shot put the U.S. ahead and the ball was live, though it wasn't supposed to be. When they came back to action, the soviet basically got a free layup and scored winning 51-50. -
Collapse of the Soviet Union
In the later of the cold war, the soviet union, internally, was struggling. On Christmas day, leaders from the surrounding satellite countries had, announced they would no longer be part of the union, and that they would be independent states from Russia. This meant the soviets lost a lot of power and support, causing it to collapse. This effectively ended the cold war, because communisms was starting to fail and lose support, leaving the U.S. as the only superpower in the world. -
Soviets test nuclear bomb
In 1949, at a remote test sight in Kazakhstan, the soviets had for the first time successfully, tested a nuclear bomb for the first time. The soviets set up small buildings, roads, and animals in cages to test the effects. This scared the U.S. for obvious reasons, as well as labeled the soviet union as a superpower.
