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Representatives from 50 countries congregated in San Francisco in the United Nations Conference on International Organization to form a collective group now known as the United Nations in order to prevent another large scale war like World War 2. -
Defined as the obligation of the US to aid any country that is under threat of Communist rule or Soviet Union forces. This doctrine was first said during a speech to congress when the US was seeking aid in order to assist Greece and Turkey. The Communist party heard this doctrine and speech and took it as a declaration of war-- the Cold War. -
10 Hollywood directors, screenwriters, and producers were asked and presented to the Supreme Court for their part in communism. After refusing to cooperate they were arrested for contempt and were put in prison until one confessed and revealed another 26 communists. They were later blacklisted from any involvement in Hollywood until the 1960s. -
Following the destruction and devastation of WWII, Europe was in shambles and was in need of heavy aid, they were otherwise vulnerable to a communist attack. Western Europe was a first defense against Communist threats to the US, so the US pushed to rebuild Western Europe. Through the Marshall Plan Europe's industry was bolstered and in turn, America's economy was stimulated through selling goods. -
NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty), was the first peacetime military alliance. It was an alliance formed for security against the Soviet Union, which detailed that an attack on one is an attack on all, basically creating a chain reaction if one country were to be attacked. During a period after WWII when Europe was in desperate need of aid, the United States provided their military and bolstered European defenses in preparation for a potential attack by the Soviets. -
Korea was split between North and South, the Northern half was controlled by Russia and the South by the US. After both countries pulled out of Korea, the North pushed the South almost completely. The US decided to step in and stop the North's complete domination. After multiple proposals and a new presidential election, the US used bombings and nuclear threats to force the North to back out of the South and realign the border back to the 38th parallel. -
The Cold War's core was about proving superiority; the US versus the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union launched their first satellite Sputnik in 1957, the Space Race had begun. Both the US and Soviet Union raced to get a man on the moon to prove their superior technology, military power, and economic and political systems. -
After the pro-communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew the American-backed president of Cuba, General Fulgencio Batista, the CIA decided to launch an attack to push Castro from power. Castro despised America's control over Cuban industries, so it was crucial for the US to push Castro since America owned almost half of Cuba's plantations, cattle ranches, mines, and utilities, and they were now threatened by Castro. -
Built overnight, the Berlin Wall was a barrier to separate West and East Berlin in order to prevent East Germans fleeing to the West. This wall was an almost literal iron curtain, a physical manifestation of the divide between the Soviet Union and the Democratic West.
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After seeing communism spread across asia, notably in China, the US was afraid that the communist control in northern Vietnam would spread south and eventually to all of asia. So the US decided to send troops, supplies, and money to support Vietnam before leaving and leaving multiple soldiers behind stuck in the battlefield. -
The Soviet Union swiftly takes immediate and complete military and political control of Kabul and other large sections of territory in Afghanistan in hopes of forcing Russia's close neighbor to support communism again after people had just overthrown their communist leader. -
After large push-backs, border crowding, and protests, the Berlin Wall was finally starting to be dismantled in 1989 by the German people; slowly tearing the wall down themselves. On June 13, 1990, the Berlin Wall officially started being dismantled by East German Border Troops. This fall was a monumental turn of events in the Cold War and a symbol of the Soviet Union's iron curtain falling.
