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Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledges American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, and a member of the Democratic Party. The Truman Doctrine helped to prevent the spread of communism into weaker European countries and therefore upheld the policy of containment. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan provided markets for American goods, created reliable trading partners, and supported the development of stable democratic governments in Western Europe. President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
Berlin Blockade/ Airlift
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. Therefore, the United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied air bases in western Germany. -
Red Scare
Joseph R. McCarthy was a former U.S. Senator. In March 1950, McCarthy had initiated a series of investigations into potential infiltration of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by communist agents and came up with a list of security risks that matched one previously compiled by the Agency itself. He brandished a piece of paper, which he claimed contained a list of known communists working for the State Department. -
Space Race
The space race played a significant part in the Cold War as the Americans and Soviets competed to prove their technological and intellectual superiority by becoming the first nation to put a human into space.With no official measure of success,the winner of the space race is a point of controversy.Most historians agree that the spacerace ended when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon for the first time.As the climax of space history and exploration,the lunar landing led to a triumph for the US. -
U-2 Incident
The United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. At first the plane was used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to monitor electronic emissions, to sample the upper atmosphere for evidence of nuclear weapons tests, and to photograph sites deep within the territory of the Soviet Union, China, and other Cold War enemies. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government. three U.S.-made airplanes piloted by Cubans bombed Cuban air bases. The principal landing took place at the Bay of Pigs on the south-central coast. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic. Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR. And the wall, built of barbed wire and cinder blocks. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, in Russian known as the Caribbean Crisis and in Cuba as the October Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. And it was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the centrepiece of global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament.The NPT is opened for signature and signed by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. -
Perestroika and Glasnost
Glasnost. a policy of the Soviet government allowing freer discussion of social problems. Perestroika. a policy initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev that involved restructuring of the social and economic status quo in communist Russia towards a market based economy and society. Alexander Yakovlev, Head of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program.