-
Berlin Airlift
Due to continuous threats and "fighting between East & West Berlin, the communist Soviets out up a blockade to prevent supplies from being delivered by ground as usual from the US.In response to this, Truman called for an airlift of supplies to West Berlin. This airlift involved over 200,000 planes and dropped more than a million and a hilf tons of supplies to the people of West Berlin. -
NATO Forms
US, Canada, and several Western nations formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). This organization was established to provide security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first alliance that the United States became a part of outside the western hemisphere. Marshall Plan was created to provide aid to Europe. -
Korean War starts
North Korea's army broke the 38th parallel boundary. This was the first military action in the Cold War. The US fought for South Korea in an attempt to stop the spread of communism. This was called containment. **VOCAB* -
US H-Bomb
US tested the first thermonuclear weapon. This gave us an advantage over the war/race in the world on nuclear weaponry. J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the forerunners of the atomic bombs development. -
Warsaw pact
Treaty signed by the Soviet Union and 7 other satellite nations in Europe. It was intended to give each of the nations protection by the rest. Included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. -
Soviets launch Sputnik
During the worldwide "space race" the Soviet Union was the first to send an artificial satellite into space. They were in the lead in the race for several months after. -
Berlin Wall
After WWII, Germany was separated/split into four zones. The wall was built to prevent west berlin from interacting with eats. East Berlin was a communist nation and wanted to keep those ideals from being affected. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The US and the Soviet Union were in a political and militarial standoff for 13 days. A US spy plane was able to take pictures showing that the Soviets had missiles planted in Cuba. JFK ordered a blockade in Cuba to keep anything from being transported. -
SALT I agreement is signed
Soviet President Lenoid Breznhev and Richard Nixon met in Moscow. "They limited the number of antiballistic missile sites each country could have to two, and the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles was frozen at existing levels." -
Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power
He became general secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1985. He used the idea of perestroika, or restructuring, to change the economic standings. He soon became the president of the Soviet Union, and remained in this position until the Soviet Union dissolved. -
Major arms control agreement is reached
The INF Treaty was signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987. Reagan then signed the National Security Directive 296 in 1988 establishing the On-Site Inspection Agency. The INF Treaty made it so that all nuclear-armed ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3400 miles were banned. -
Iron Curtain begins to crumble in Europe
With the decline of communism, Germany and the Iron Curtain also deteriorated. Germans protested for years to bring the wall down, and finally on November 9th, 1989, the wall fell. This marked a turning point in the spread of the "no communism" ideals. -
Soviet Union collapses
Mikhail Gorbacev, knowing the decline was happening and left without power, resigned from presidential post, and left Boris Yeltsin as the president of the newly free Russian state. -
European Union established
A political/economic union, made up of 28 member states. -
Al Qaeda attacked the United States
The United States was attacked in New York City, New York. Two hijacked planes were flown into the world trade center towers early that morning. Another plane hit the pentagon. The fouth hijacked plane was hijacked back by the passengers on board and crashed to avoid another disaster. Thousands of people were killed. Al Qeada is a terrorist group out of Iraq, led by Osama Bin Laden. -
United States invaded Iraq
The US invaded Baghdad, in search of Osama Bin Laden. He led the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
