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Truman Doctrine
On this date, President Truman asked Congress for $400 million for Greece and Turkey. The reason being he wanted to help them economically and with their military. This caused a lot of people to disagree because some argued that if we helped too much the United States powers would be lacking in the US if we helped out in other countries too much. In addition some didn't want to get involved with other nations to much. Despite that some people opposed this, Congress agreed with Truman. -
Marshall Plan
Created by U.S. secretary of state General George Marshall. The goal was to help all European nations that need it. A lot of people didn't want to give away $12.5 billion, but on February 1948 when Soviet tanks took over Czechoslovakia Congress quickly approved the plan. They plan was successful and in 1952 Western Europe was doing great. -
Creation on NATO
The countries that are involved in NATO are Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States. The reason NATO was created was to say that when one country got attacked the other one basically got attacked. It was saying that they would support eachother in wars. -
Korean War
North Korean troops invaded South Korea by crossing the 38th parallel to try and spread communism. Once the United States heard, President Truman had naval and air support sent to help South Korea to prevent the spread of communism. This has an impact on the war because it got the US and 16 other nations involved. Now this war is sometimes reffered to as the forgotten war because the war isnt over with yet and people don't realize that and just over look it. -
Rosenberg Spy Case
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were two American citizens accused and then convicted of espionage about the atomic bomb. Julius worked with the Army Signal Corps and was eventually fired once the US army found out that he had involvment in the communist party. Ethel was supposedly drawing images of the bomb called Fat Man and Little Boy. They were both sent to the electric chair in 1953. -
Vietnam War
In the begining of the war President Eisenhower didn't want to get involved, but that changed. Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel, Ho Chi Minh's nationalist in the north and Ngo Dinh Diem in the south. There was supposed to be a democratic election but Diem backed out of it, in fear that he would lose. The US took Diem's side but Vietnam didn't handle it well. Diem and his brother ended up getting murdered. This war was the first televised war having body counts on TV every night. -
Creation of Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a military allience created because the Soviet Union was fearful of NATO. The Warsaw Pact included the Eastern European satellite nations. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs is a small body of water on the southeastern coast of Cuba. When Cuba started to grow stronger ties with the Soviet Union, the US was worried about the spread of communism, because we were so worried about the spread we invaded Cuba. We tried to overthrow Castro, the leader of Cuba, but failed. Castro wanted to strengthen socialism in his country. -
Berlin Wall Goes Up
In the begining East Germany started to close the border between West and East Berlin with barb wire. When people found out about the wall going up they were furious because some were seperated from their family. People who tried to cross the wall were sometimes shot and killed. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was when Major Richard Heyser flew over Cuba and took around 1,000 pictures. When he got the pictures developed there was missiles identified in the images. These necular missiles were built by the Soviets. Kennedy wanted these missiles to be removed so he announced publically that he wouldn't invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. In return US got their missiles out of Turkey -
US Sends Man to Moon
The first man on the moon ever was an American man by the name of Neil Armstrong. The big deal about this was that the United States were basically competing against the Soviet Union to see who could get there first. They called this comptition the Space Race. -
Olympic Rivalry: 1972 Basketball Game
This was America and the Soviet Union played against eachother in the 1972 Summer Olympics. They were playing for the gold medal and naturally America wanted to win. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union won 51-50. A close game that got many Americans upset. Some of the American players didn't want to sign the scoring sheet, wanting to protest. -
1980 Olympic Hockey Game
This Olympic game is when America played the Soviet Union and won. Many people refer to this game as the miracle on ice because the US team was made up of a lot of amateur players. Also the Soviet Union was a very good team and took home gold in the previous four olympics. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The Fall of Berlin Wall happened because the East German government said that citizens could visit West German. The reason they said this was because of sudden polotical changes. First people started to chip away at the wall and eventually the wall was taken down with industrial equipment. -
Collapse of Soviet Union
The collapse of the Soviet Union happened when President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991. He gave the necular missile lauching codes to the Russian President. The Soviet Union slowly started to lose control of their people. An example would be when the people of the Soviet Union first heard foreign radio stations on November 29, 1988.
