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Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
Hollywood Ten
In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. -
Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in faraway conflicts. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. It was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbors – as well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States. -
NATO pact signed
The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955, between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a collective security alliance concluded between the United States, Canada and Western European nations in 1949. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a collective security alliance concluded between the United States, Canada and Western European nations in 1949. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long war, communist government of N.Vietnam against S.Vietnam and ally, the United States. The conflict intensified by ongoing Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (over 58,000 Americans) were killed in Vietnam. President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of S. Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam -
U-2 Spy Incident
An international diplomatic crisis erupted in May 1960 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers (1929-77). The U-2 spy plane incident raised tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets during the Cold War (1945-91), the largely political clash between the two superpowers and their allies that emerged following World War II. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
U.S. intelligence U-2 spy plane discovered that the Soviets were building missile sites in Cuba. The next day, Pres. Kennedy secretly convened an emergency meeting of senior military, political, and diplomatic advisers to discuss the missiles. they decided for a naval quarantine and a demand that the bases be dismantled and missiles removed. During the next six days, the crisis escalated to a breaking point as the world tottered on the brink of nuclear war between the two superpowers. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete between E. and W. Berlin. The purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but primarily had the objective of mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when East German Communist Party announced that citizens could cross the border whenever they pleased
