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Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War, 1945-1950, fought between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party (GMD), was a defining conflict for China, East Asia, and the world. -
Formation of the Warsaw Pact
A military alliance of communist nations in eastern Europe. Organized in 1955 in answer to NATO, the Warsaw Pact included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. -
Berlin Airlift
At the end of the Second World War, U.S., British, and Soviet military forces divided and occupied Germany. -
Formation of NATO
NATO is a military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II to strengthen international ties between member states—especially the United States and Europe—and to serve as a counter-balance to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. -
National Security Council Report NSC-68
National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) was a 58-page top secret policy paper by the United States National Security Council presented to President Harry S. Truman on April 14, 1950. -
Korean War
A war, also called the Korean conflict, fought in the early 1950s between the United Nations, supported by the United States, and the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). -
President Truman fires General MacArthur
The firing of MacArthur set off a brief uproar among the American public, but Truman remained committed to keeping the conflict in Korea a “limited war.” -
Launching of Sputnik
The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war.