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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution is from March 8, 1917 to November 7, 1917. This is when Communism is being born and Vladimir Lenin is leading his Bolshevik party to overthrow the current government with communism. A party of anti-Lenin people known as the Menshevik's came about and the U.S aided them because the U.s opposed communist due to the lack of rights for the people, no independent property and wealth and their ability to execute and arrest with out question. -
Potsdam Conference
From July 17, 1945 to August 2, 1945, a conference was held between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin to discuss what was going to happen with postwar Europe. However tensions got high during this conference because, the U.S and Great Britain wanted freedom and democracy for everyone, while Stalin had a goal of spreading communism all through out Europe. -
The Atomic Bomb
On August 6 1945 the U.S dropped the worlds first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and then dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. This action upset the Soviet Union because the military balance had been destroyed between the Soviets and the U.S. because the U.S was now way ahead of them in military powers. Also Truman's readiness to drop the bomb threatened Stalin's red army. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was Stalin's buffer zone that consisted of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland,Czechoslovakia, and eastern Germany. Stalin developed this on March 5, 1946. He did this as an assurance to help protect from future invasions -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. It was seen as the USSR version of the Marshall Plan, because the Eastern European countries were unable to join the Marshall Plan, with out leaving the soviet sphere of influence -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was the presidents appeal to request aid to countries to help fight off communism. Specifically he wanted 400 million dollars to aid Greece and Turkey. Truman addressed his proposal on March 12, 1947 and this would guide the diplomacy for the U.S for the next forty years -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was proposed in 1947 by Secretary of State George Marshall. This was his plan to commence massive economic assistance to post war Europe. His plan was directed towards hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. He wanted to revive their economy because he feared they would turn to communism rather than starvation and death. And on April 3, 1948 President Truman signed this recovery act. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was from June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949. Stalin did this because he was against the new currency the U.S introduced in West Germany. He commended the move as American economic imperialism and he revolted it. Also France, Great Britain, and the U.S put their share together to form West Germany , which upset Stalin as well because Germany is his worse fear. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin airlift began on June 26, 1948. This was the U.S and Great Britans response to Stalin's blockade. They would fly in supplies, food, candy etc. Because Stalin had cut off everything. The U.S and Britain flew stuff in constantly, with a plan landing every 3 minutes. The Blockade lasted 318 days until Stalin ended it on May 6, 1949 -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was an employee for the State Department and he was accused of being a communist. The case was going to be dismissed but one of its members(Nixon) pressed the case, and Alger Hiss was convicted of purgery, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. This caused people to fear that there was a communist conspiracy to destroy the United States -
NATO
NATO was formed as a united defense against Soviet Aggression on April 4, 1949. It consisted of the United State, Canada, and ten other European nations to form a military alliance. The alliance is called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and it still exists in present day -
Soviet Bomb Test
The Soviets successfully tested their first atomic bomb on August 28, 1949. This scared the U.S because they were now equal to us in military power, also if actual war were to breakout it would be all nuclear. Also the Soviets tested their bomb way before the U.S expected them too due to Russian Spies during the making of our atomic bombs. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood 10 were a small group of people that refused to answer questions at the hearing about communism in movies. Under the protection of the 5th amendment. They were convicted for contempt and sentenced to prison, while many others were black listed from studios -
Korean War
The war began on June 25, 1950,and ended on July 27, 1953. It was when North Korea invaded South Korea, following a series of clashes along the border. The United Nations, primarily the United States came to aid South Korea. And China and the Soviet Union gave assistance to North Korea -
Rosenburg Trial
The Rosenburg trial, was the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg for a connection with the plot to pass U.S bomb secrets to the Soviets. While they didn't have enough evidence for a proper conviction they were convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. And years later the evidence came out proving their role in the passing of bomb information to the Soviets. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion lasted from April 17, 1951 through April 20. This planned during Eisenhower's administration but was carried through and up to JFK. He agreed to the mission known as Bay of Pigs which was an armed invasion of Cuba by former cubans. However Kennedy refused to lend naval and military support so the mission failed, and the Kennedy administration was humiliated. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the climatic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist-nationalist revolutionaries. It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. The battle occurred between March 13 and May 7 1954 and ended with a French defeat. -
Army- McCarthy hearings
The Army-McCarthy hearings were a series of trials from April to June 1954 held by Joseph McCarthy, who was a U.S senator in Wisconsin, who exploited the red scare for political gain. He charged the army with aggressive investigations of suspected communists and security risks in the army. Eventually McCarthy was exposed as a fraud, and an arrogant tyrant. -
Geneva Conference
The Geneva conference was a meeting of the world superpowers in an effort to resolve the several problems in Asia, including the French and Vietnamese nationlists in indochina. This conference marked a turning point in the United States involvement in Vietnam. As a result of the conference the Geneva Accord was signed in July of 1954 and the French agreed to withdraw their troops from northern Vietnam and Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel, with pending elections of a president. -
Warsaw Pact
Stalin created the Warsaw pact as a response to NATO. It was formed between him and his buffer zone, which they called the Warsaw Pact. It was a competition alliance which didn't really do anything -
Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the communist government of the Hungarian People's Republic and it's Soviet Imposed policies. This uprising lasted from October 23, 1956 to November 10, 1956. -
U2 Incident
The U-2 incident occurred during the cold war on May 1, 1960 when the USSR shot down an american plane U-2 spy plane in soviet air space and captured the pilot Francis Gary Powers. Confronted with the evidence of his nations espionage, Eisenhower was forced to admit to the CIA that the U.S had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. The incident raised tensions between the U.S and the soviets during the Cold war. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was opened on August 13, 1961 and it was a guarded concrete barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was constructed by East Germany, and virtually cut off west Berlin from East Germany and East Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day confrontation between the U.S and the Soviet Union concerning of nuclear missile deployment in Italy, Turkey, and Cuba. This was solved when the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. -
Assassination of Diem
Diem was perceived as an impediment to the accomplishment of U.S. goals in Southeast Asia. His increasingly dictatorial rule only succeeded in alienating most of the South Vietnamese people, and his brutal repression of protests led by Buddhist monks during the summer of 1963 convinced many American officials that the time had come for Diem to go. Following the coup by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. -
Assassination of JFK
JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 pm in Dallas,Texas. They were riding in a car waving at the excited croud when he was struck with a bullet to the neck and head, and slumped into his wife's lap. They sped off to a hospital but little could be done. The Dallas police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after for the assassination. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was when 2 U.S destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam were fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. In response President Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. Which resulted in Johnson having nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder lasted from March 2, 1965 till November 1, 1968. It was was the codename for an American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam. It marked the first sustained American assault on North Vietnamese territory and represented a major expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. -
TET Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam.
The U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the attacks, news coverage of the massive offensive shocked the American public and eroded support for the war effort. Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a victory and the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was a Baptist minister and founder of the SCLC, had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, fought segregation and achieved significant civil-rights advances for African Americans. His death helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. -
Assassination of RFK
On June 5, 1968, 42-year-old presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded shortly after midnight PDT at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He had just won the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election.Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, officially known as Operation Danube, was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact nations – the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and Poland – on the night of 20–21 August 1968.The invasion successfully stopped Alexander Dubcek's Prague Spring liberalization reforms and strengthened the authority of the authoritarian wing within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia -
Riots of Democratic convention
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
Election of Nixon
Eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president.Two years after losing to Kennedy, Nixon ran for governor of California and lost in a bitter campaign against Edmund G. Brown. Most political observers believed that Nixon’s political career was over, but by February 1968, he had sufficiently recovered his political standing in the Republican Party to announce his candidacy for president. -
Kent State
On May 4, 1970, four Kent State University students were killed and nine injured when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire during a demonstration protesting the Vietnam War. -
Nixon visits China
Nixon’s historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China. It was a move calculated to drive an even deeper wedge between the two most significant communist powers. The United States could use closer diplomatic relations with China as leverage in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. Also the United States could be able to make use of the Chinese as a counterweight to North Vietnam. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
A cease fire went into affect January 28, 1973 at 8 am. When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam’s territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped from deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive U.S. aid after the cease-fire. -
Fall of Saigon
The fall of Saigon effectively marked the end of the Vietnam War. After the introduction of Vietnamisation by President Richard Nixon in 1968 , US forces in South Vietnam had been constantly reduced leaving the military of South Vietnam to defend their country against the North. By 1975, what remained of the South Vietnamese Army was not capable of withstanding the advance of the North and it was an inevitability that Saigon would fall to communist forces. -
Reagan Elected
Ronald Reagan, a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. Dubbed the Great Communicator, the affable Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. -
SDI Announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative,also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. The Strategic Defense Initiative was the United States’ response to possible nuclear attacks from afar. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no agreements. However, the meeting went well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship. -
'Tear down this wall ' Speech
Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. The speech was advised against by several advisiors out of fear that it might cause further East-West tensions or potential embarrassment to Gorbachev. But he went on with it and stated that if the Soviets really wanted peace and change they had to take the wall down. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall put up in 1961 stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself. To this day, the Berlin Wall remains one of the most powerful and enduring symbols of the Cold War.
