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In a speech later remembered as the "Truman Doctrine," President Harry S. Truman pledges American assistance to any nation in the world threatened by Communism, While establishing the worldwide containment of Communism as a vital American national security interest.
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In a speech made at Harvard University, Secretary of State George Marshall proposes the Marshall Plan, a $13 billion foreign aid package designed to help Europe recover from the devastation of World War II.
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Cold War Begins
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fter the United States, Britain, and France introduce the Deutsche Mark to serve as a single currency for their three zones of occupation in western Germany, the Soviets impose the Berlin blockade, cutting off rail and road access to the capital city, which is located in the middle of the Soviet zone of eastern Germany.
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Due to West Germany Blockage any trade to the Western area of Europe. The United States were sent to Berlin with Airplanes full of food, water, and shelter.
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Ten Western European nations join the United States and Canada to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an anti-Soviet military alliance that extends the deterrent threat of America's nuclear weapons to cover Western Europe.
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The Soviet Union forms the Warsaw Pact, a Communist military alliance intended to counter the threat posed by the West's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
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Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declares the People's Republic of China as the Communists win their civil war against Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists, who flee to Taiwan.
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President Dwight Eisenhower publicly articulates the "Domino Theory" in reference to the threat of Communist gains in Indochina. The theory holds that the fall of one nation (like Indochina) to Communism might lead, like a chain of dominoes, to the fall of neighboring nations as well.
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The Soviets launch Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the earth. The Soviets' technological success in building the world's first satellite strikes fear in the hearts of Americans and launches the space race.
