Cold War Timeline

  • Yalta Conference

    Yalta Conference

    Meeting of FDR, Churchill, Stalin
  • US uses Atomic Bomb on Japan

    US effectively ends WWII by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan
  • Japanese surrender

    Japanese surrender

    Japan surrenders, ending the second world war officially
  • Marshall plan

    Marshall plan

    Marshall Plan is announced setting a precedent for helping countries combat poverty, disease and malnutrition
  • Truman Doctrine

    Truman Doctrine

    active role in greek civil war
  • Rio Pact

    Rio Pact

    U.S. meet 19 Latin American countries and created a security zone
  • Communist takeover in CzechoSlovakia

    Communist takeover in CzechoSlovakia

    the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia. It marked the onset of four decades of the party's rule in the country.
  • Trumans Loyalty program

    Trumans Loyalty program

    Created to assist finding soviet spies
  • Berlin Blockade begins

    Berlin Blockade begins

    The blockade lasted 11 months
  • Germany divided between the Western Allies and Soviet Union

    Germany divided between the Western Allies and Soviet Union

    Berlin was located in the Eastern Soviet sector, its control was also divided between the Western powers and the USSR. In June of 1948, the USSR attempted to gain control of the entire city by cutting off all traffic to West Berlin. The United States responded with a daily airlift of food and supplies into the city. The airlift lasted until September of 1949. the western allied powers would deliver 2.3 million tons of supplies and fuel to West Berlin during the airlift.
  • USSR test first Nuclear Bomb

    USSR test first Nuclear Bomb

    The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, known in the West as Joe-1, on Aug. 29, 1949, at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan.
  • Peoples republic of China is Established

    Peoples republic of China is Established

    Mao Zedong takes control
  • Korean War

    Korean War

    The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea
  • McCarthyism

    McCarthyism

    witch hunts and loyalty tests begin
  • US test first hydrogen bomb

    US test first hydrogen bomb

    The United States detonates the first hydrogen bomb at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It is 500 times more powerful than the Nagasaki bomb.
  • The space race begins

    The space race begins

    The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, marking the start of the space race.
  • Sputnik Launched into Orbit

    Sputnik Launched into Orbit

    The USSR rocketed to the lead in the Cold War's "Space Race" with the launch of Sputnik, a basketball-sized satellite that became the first manmade object to orbit the Earth
  • Vietnam War

    Vietnam War

    Lasted from 1959 to 1975, the ussr and china backed communist north Vietnam, while the US backed south vietnam
  • USSR tests the largest nuclear bomb ever

    Known as the big ivan in the USSR and the TSAR bomba in the US
  • Berlin Wall divides Germany

    Berlin Wall divides Germany

    Late on August 12, in an effort to stem the tide of defectors, Soviet Premier Khrushchev gave the East German government permission to stop the flow of emigrants by closing its border for good.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    Cuban Missile Crisis

    On October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was briefed by the CIA that an American U-2 spy plane had taken photographs of Soviet nuclear missile launch sites under construction in Cuba. Over the next 13 days the Cuban Missile Crisis would unfold, bringing the US and the former Soviet Union the closest we have ever been to nuclear war.
  • TITAN II ICBMS DEPLOYED

    TITAN II ICBMS DEPLOYED

    The largest land-based missile ever deployed by the US, the Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was 103 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter. The Titan II could launch from its underground silo in just 58 seconds and it carried the W-53 warhead with a yield of 9 megatons (9,000,000 tons of TNT).
  • Hot Line created between US and USSR

    The Cuban Missile Crisis prompted the US and USSR to set up a direct line of communication between the two countries to enable rapid and direct communication between them in crisis situations
  • Able archer and the war scare

    Able archer and the war scare

    In early November of 1983 the world may have come closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. NATO was conducting what it considered a routine exercise named Able Archer, a simulation designed to train and test the procedures for shifting from conventional to nuclear war. However, the Soviet Union interpreted the exercise as a prelude to a first strike by the United States
  • LAST TITAN II COMES OFF ALERT

    LAST TITAN II COMES OFF ALERT

    The last titan missile came off of alert, signaling the end of the war cold war is approaching
  • Berlin Wall falls

    Berlin Wall falls

    The berlin wall was teared down, millions of germans celebrate as their country is united again
  • Soviet Union collapses, end of cold war

    Soviet Union collapses, end of cold war

    on December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. The president of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin, formed the Commonwealth of Independent states. After 45 years, the Cold War, the longest war in US history, was over.