Cold War Timeline

  • Period: to

    Cold War

  • NATO

    The orginization was officially formed to help prevent the spread of communism in Europe, though there were many other reasons behind it. This became the representation of the Western Alliance during the Cold War.
  • Arms Race Begins

    The Soviet Union officially developes their first nuclear weapon. This causes mass shock among the United States, and is the start of a massive competition to maintain military dominance.
  • Revolts In Europe

    Many massive revolts took place in Eastern Europes due to the lack of freedom in the communist governments. The Soviet Union often delt with these revolts, but when they lost the ability to fund the troops these revolutionaries took power.
  • Warsaw Pact

    This was the Soviet Unions official answer to the formation of NATO. It was formed souly of communist countries, and was ment to protect communism.
  • Space Race

    This was the launch of the first ever man made satilite in space. The U.S. responded to this by immediatly creating NASA as a competitor to the Soviet Unions space programme.
  • Cuban Communist

    Sometime during 1959 a man named Fidel Castro overthrew the current Cuban Dictator, and installed a communist government. This caused the U.S. to worry about the potential of a communist country so close to the U.S. borders, and many attempts to overthrow him were made,
  • Berlin Wall

    A massive wall constructed to prevent Eastern Berlin citizens from moving to Western Berlin to work, or for other reasons. Anyone attempting to cross it risked being shot, and soon became the symbol of communist brutality.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    A U.S. spy plane first photographs a missile on a launching site, and other missiles are identified. The United States soon finds out that they are Soviet Missiles, and it causes massive tensions within the U.S. It eventually ends with the U.S. removing missiles with Turkey, and the Soviet Union removing them from Cuba.
  • Test Ban Treaty

    The United States, and the Soviet Union finally agreed upon a treaty to limit the potential of Nuclear War. This treaty prevented the either side from testing Nuclear Weapons in hopes to prevent both sides from creating a potentially deadly, and destructive nuclear weapon.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev

    Mikhail Gorbachev took power, and many supprisingly radical reforms within the Soviet Union that eventually led to its downfall. The date Gorbachev took power is often marked as the end of the cold war.