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Cold War start
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Nuclear Arms Race
Belief that the more nuclear weapons you had, the more powerful you were. In the 1950s both the United States and Soviet Union had enough nuclear power to obliterate the other side. During the 1960’s the theory of MAD developed (Mutually. Assured. Destruction.) This meant that if Russia attacked the USA, the USA would make sure that they would suitably retaliate i.e. there would be no winners. Both sides knew that any attack upon the other would be devastating to themselves. -
China becomes Communist
China became communist because the communist party won the war in 1949. Communism won because it managed to rally the extremely angry peasant population after WW2 and use sheer numbers to crush the representative republic. Its wasn't a coup or an invasion, the people of China had literally chosen the communist party of China to lead. -
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Korean War
The Korean War Began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 28th parallel and began to invade south Korea; South Korea quickly became overrun. The US intervened with General Douglas MacArthur commanding the US forces. US and NATO combined with anti-communist interests swayed the UN to take action, so they sent in troops. USSR abstained from any vote on security council hence the ability for the UN to allow troops to go into North Korea. -
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Vietnam War
The Soviet Union and USA fought on opposite sides of the war, the Soviets; fighting for communism in Vietnam and the USA; against.
The Viet Cong were Vietnamese rebels in the South who fought against the Southern Vietnam government and the United States. -
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Hungarian Uprising
On the 3rd of November, Nagy, announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact, falling to popular opinion. Khrushchev was not going to allow this - if he had, it would show weakness in the Pact and would have possibly made other countries attempt their own leave, unacceptable to the Soviets. Thus on the 4th of November, 1,000 Russian tanks rolled into Budapest, destroying the Hungarian army and closing in on Nagy, who had by now taken refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. -
American spy plane incident
On May 1, 1960, the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying though Soviet airspace. The fallout over the incident resulted in the cancellation of the Paris Summit scheduled to discuss the ongoing situation in divided Germany, the possibility of an arms control or test ban treaty, and the relaxation of tensions between the USSR and the United States. -
Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, construction of the Berlin wall began by East Germany. The wall was built out of both concrete and barbed wire, rising about 3.6 metres in height and spaning 155km around the West Berlin Border. In the Summer of 1989, the Hungry boarder was opened, which allowed East Germans to escape to West Germany. Eventually after spanning 29 long years, the Berlin Wall officially ended on November 9th, 1989. However, demolition only began on June 13th 1990. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
On 14th October 1962 when an American spy plane captured detailed photographs of missile sites being built. Over the next few days more photos were taken, it was calculated the first sights would be operational within seven days, with the rest not following far behind. Kennedy met with a group of advisers called Ex comm on the 16th. The problem was that these missiles were so close and were capable of hitting as far as Salt Lake City far in the East. -
Cold War end
