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Who: Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin
Where: Yalta,Ukraine
What: The Cold War was a struggle for the world dominance between the capitalist United States and communist Soviet Union. At the Yalta Conference, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France agreed to split Germany into four zones of occupation after the war. -
Who:Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Clement Atlee and Harry Truman
Where: Potsdam, Germany
What: The conference failed to settle most of the important issues at hand and thus helped set the stage for the Cold War that would begin shortly after World War II came to an end. The meeting at Potsdam was the third conference between the leaders of the Big Three nations. -
Who: America and Japan
Where: Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Japan
What: In August 1945 the USA detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The intention was to force Japan to surrender, thus avoiding a long war in the Pacific. This action had the added potential of pressurizing the USSR into negotiating over Eastern Europe and Germany. -
Who: Soviet Union
Where: Central and Eastern Europe
What: It was originally called the "Brother Plan" in the Soviet Union. This aid allowed countries in Europe to stop relying on American aid and therefore allowed Molotov Plan states to reorganize their trade to the Soviet Union instead. -
Who: Harry S. Truman
Where: Greece and Turkey
What: The Truman Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world. It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from detente (a relaxation of tension) to a containment of Soviet expansion as advocated by diplomat George Kennan. -
Who: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and Western Germany.
Where: Harvard University
What: Implementation of the Marshall Plan has been cited since the beginning of the Cold War between the US and its European allies and the Soviet Union, which had effectively taken control of much of central and eastern Europe and established its satillite republics as communist nations. -
Who: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Where: Brussels, Belgium
What: Brussels Treaty agreement signed by Britain, France, Belgiom, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, creating a collective defense alliance. A goal of the treaty was to show that western European states could cooperate, thus encouraging the US to play a role in the security of western Europe. -
Who: Soviet Union
Where: West Berlin, Germany
What: Not only did the blockade turn out to be totally ineffective, it ended up backfiring on the Soviets in other ways. It provoked genuine fears of the war in the West. And instead of preventing the establishment of an independent West Germany, it accelerated the Allies plans to set up the state. -
Who: Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
Where: Brussels ,Belgium
What: During the Cold War, NATO forces provided a frontline detterence against the Soviet Union and its satillite states. More recently, the organization has pursued global peace and security while asserting its members' strategic interests in the campaign against Islamic terrorism. -
Who: Yuly Khariton
Where: Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan
What: Known as the Cold War, this conflict began as a struggle for control over the conquered areas of Eastern Europe in the late 1940s and continued into the early 1990s. Initially, only the United States possessed atomic weapons, but in 1949 the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb and the arms race began. -
Who: North Korea and South Korea
Where: Korea
What: The Korean War was an important development in the Cold War because it was the first time that the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, had fought a 'proxy war' in a third country. The proxy war or 'limited war' strategy would be a feature of other Cold War conflicts, for example the Vietnam War. -
Who: Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lavrentiy Beria.
Where: Kuntsevo, Moscow, Russia
What: Stalin's death led to a temporary thaw in Cold War tensions. In 1955, Austria regained its sovereignity and became an independent, neutral nation after the withdrawl of Soviet troops from country. The next year, Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his policies at the 20th Communist Party Conference. -
Who: Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechlovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Romania. (Albania withdrew in 1968)
Where: Warsaw, Poland
What: The Soviet Union dominated Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. AfterWorld War II, it formed the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance of European communist states meant to counter NATO. It was dissolved after the coomunist regimes collapsed at the end of the Cold War. -
Who: France, US, China, Soviet Union, Laos, Cambodia, South Korea and Vietnam
Where: Vietnam
What: The bloody conflict had its roots in French colonial rule and an independence movement driven by communist leader Ho Chi Minh. Vietnam was a battleground in the Cold War, when the United States and Soviet Union grappled for world domination. By war's end, North and South Vietnam would be reunited, but at great cost. -
Who: Soviet Union and Hungarian Revolutionaries
Where: Hungary
What: Although the Soviet Union did not suffer severe international consequences for the crackdown on the Hungarian Uprising, the event did have important effects on the Eastern Bloc and Soviet internal affairs. Most importantly, the rebellion in Hungary exposed the weaknesses of Eastern European communism. -
Who: United States and Canada
Where: Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
What: It is under NORAD that all aircraft were identified and monitored throughout the Cold War, and is still operational today. NORAD is the reason for the construction of the famous Underground Comples (UGC) at 22 WIng/Canadian Forces Base North Bay. -
Who: Fidel Castro
Where: Cuba
What: After Batista's over throw in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's prime minister. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis- defining incident of the Cold War- in 1962 -
Who: Fidel Castro, Jose Fernandez, Raul Castro and Juan Bosque
Where: Cuba
What: In 1961 the United States sent trained Cuban exiles to Cuba to try and overthrow Fidel Castro's government. They failed miserably. The invasion is considered part of the Cold War because the United States was trying to prevent communism from taking hold in the Americas. -
Who:German Democratic Republic
Where: East Germany
What: The wall seperated East Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing East Berlin. In many ways it was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that seperated the democratic western countries and the communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War -
Who: The Soviet Union and the United States
Where: Cuba and the Carribean Sea
What: The Cuban missile crisis stands as a singular event during the Cold War and strengthened Kennedy's image domestically and internationally. It also may have helped mitigate negative world opinion regarding the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Two other important results of the crisis came in unique forms. -
Who: United States and Russia
Where: United States
What: During the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union became engaged in a nuclear arms race. They both spent billions and billions of dollars trying to build up huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. This was crippling to their economy and helped bring an end to the Cold War -
Who: US, UK, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China
Where: Afghanistan
What: The increased Soviet defense spending and the war in Afghanistan combined with a moribund economy forced the Soviets to make difficult decisions. Ultimately, the Afghan invasion and the renewed confrontation with the west it caused led to the fall of communism in not only Russia but throughout Europe. -
Who: Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Walesa
Where: Gdansk, Poland
What: Solidarity's influence led to the intesification and spread of anti-communist ideals and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments. -
Who: Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain and eventually France
Where: Berlin, Germany
What: First constructed in 1961, the wall was the Cold War's mosttangible symbol of communism and demarcation of the Iron Curtain. The wall symbolized the lack of freedom under communism. It symbolized the Cold War and divide between the communist Soviet Bloc and Western democratic, capitalist bloc. -
Who: Nazi's and the Soviet Union
Where: Prague, Czechoslovakia
What: The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was significant in the sense that it delayed the splintering of Eastern European Communism and was concluded without provoking any direct intervention from the West -
Who: Soviet Union
Where: Eastern Europe
What: In late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its component republics. With stunning speed, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end.