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The Marshall Plan
U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall called for America to help European Nations after WWII to rebuild its economy and political stability. Western Europe and the Truman Administration both supported the proposal resulted in the Economical Cooperation Act in 1948 which helped restore productivity in Europe. -
Creation of NATO
The main cause of the creation of NATO was due to Soviet Communist expansion and the threats towards Turkey and Greece. The U.S. and 11 other nations agreed to the North American Treaty Organization, which stated to protect each other once any one of the nations were under an attack from the USSR.Countries that joined include Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Canada, Iceland, Great Britain, U.S., Italy, Norway, and Portugal. Greece, Turkey, and East Berlin joined later. -
The Korean War
A UN alliance by the US came to South Korea's rescue after being attacked by North Korea, USSR, and Communist China. The war ended in a tie and political standpoints returned to how they originally were before the war. The U.S. was brought into the Korean War because they were butting heads with Communist countries due to the U.S. having more leadership in Western countries. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War lasted 20 years in which France and the U.S. fought Northern Korea. The first conflict in Indochina was a conflict between Vietnamese nationalists and France, with the help of the U.S. The U.S. then became the major force against North Korea in the second war in the Vietnam conflict. The Communists won the war in 1975, which was a setback to stopping Communism in Asia. -
Creation of the Warsaw Pact
As a Communist rebuttal to the creation of NATO, Albania, Czech Republic, West Berlin, Poland, USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania signed the Warsaw Pact. This pact was used as an alliance, but was more so used as a way for the USSR to keep an eye on their allies. The USSR also used it to enforce Soviet domiance and Communism in Eastern Europe. Albania officially dropped out of the alliance in 1968. The pact fell apart and officially ended in 1991. -
Soviet Launches Sputnik
The Soviet Union was the first to launch a satellite that orbited the Earth, while the U.S. launched it a year later and called it Explorer 1. The Soviet Union's satellie emitted a series of radio energy. A month later they launched Sputnik 2 which launched a dog into space, which was the first animal in space. -
Bay of Pigs
The U.S. invaded Cuba to attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro, due to Castro taking over U.S. oil refineries in Cuba in 1960. The U.S. then stopped buying Cuban sugar which Cuba responded to by overtaking U.S. businesses in Cuba. President Kennedy ordered the U.S.army to attack, and they landed at the Bay of Pigs at the southern coast of Cuba but were defeated by Castro's army. -
Berlin Wall Goes Up
Germany became divided into 2 seperate countries in 1949, the USSR taking East Berlin and Western powers taking West Berlin. USSR leader Khrushchev met with U.S. President Kennedy and threatened to sign a peace agreement with E.Berlin to block the U.S. having access to West Berlin. After a large amount of Eastern Germans fled to West Berlin, the Soviets created a large wall in order to keep both sides economically stable. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Nikita Khrushchev began implementing the use of missiles in Cuba in 1961 to protect the country from U.S. invasion and to get ahead of the U.S. in developing and using missiles. The Soviet Union began building missile bases hidden from the U.S., but Kennedy found out and made a speech about the bases on TV. Khrushchev then informed Kennedy that the bases would be taken down if the U.S. promised to not invade Cuba. The U.S. agreed, -
SALT
The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) was created by America and the Soviet Union to control the arms race. The neogotiations lasted until 1972. -
Nixon visits China
This marks the first time a U.S. president visited China and ended a 25 year period of the 2 countries seperation. This began a shift in the Cold War that made China with the U.S. against the Soviet Union. This visit allowed the U.S. to see pictures of China that they hadn't seen in 2 decades. -
USSR invades Afghanistan
After a socialist coup in 1978, a small civil war erupted in Afghanistan between the socialists and many muslim-oriented groups collectively called the mujaheddin. On December 24, 1979, about 300,000 Soviet troops crossed the border to assist their struggling client state. After 9 and a half years of bloody, ruthless fighting, the USSR withdrew their troops joining the 6 other major forces that Afghan forces had defeated throughout history. -
1980 Olympics Game
The 1980 games were known to be the largest Olympic boyscott in history due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. 61 other countries joined. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, East Berlin Communist leader that the border would be open for private trips to foreign nations, in which the nation rejoiced and citizens of East Berlin began pushing towards West Berlin and new border crossings were created on December 22. A union between East & West Berlin began on June 1, 1990 an traveling restrictions were dropped, thus beginning the demolition of the Berlin Wall. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union broke up into 15 countries and started to fall apart. The Russian government initially wanted one united country under Communism and socialist reform, but the country underestimated its citizens ability to resist the government. When the economy started to fall apart, Gorbachev became the country's leader but failed to control the power of the population, thus the fall of the USSR.
