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United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization created in 1945, shortly after the end of WWII. The UN was formed by 51 countries in order to encourage resolution of international conflicts without war and to form policies on international issues. Like most organizations, the UN was formed in order to meet certain goals and purposes. -
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Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. Eventually, the western powers instituted an airlift that lasted nearly a year and delivered much-needed supplies and relief to West Berlin. -
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Berlin Airlift
In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
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Apartheid
The National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty. -
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Korean War
North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. -
Warsaw Pact
A mutual defence organisation that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Travelling at 18,000 miles an hour. -
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Space Race
United States and the Soviet Union became locked in a global conflict pitting democracy against communism. Space became a critical theater in this Cold War, as each side competed to best the other's achievements in what became known as the Space Race. -
Moon Landing
A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's. -
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Bay of Pigs Invasion
A failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. -
Berlin Wall
Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. -
Ho Chi Minh
A Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. -
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Cuban Missile Crisis
President John F. Kennedy announced that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba. These missile sites—under construction but nearing completion housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States, including Washington. -
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. -
Gulf of Tonkin incident
Also known as the USS Maddox incident, drew the United States more directly into the Vietnam War. It involved two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. -
Mao Zedong
Chinese communist revolutionary and father of the People's Republic of China, which he governed as the Chairman of the Communist. -
Francis Gary Powers
was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace.