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The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism.The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild a war-devastated region, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and make Europe prosperous again. -
Creation of NATO
Formed in 1949, NATO was set up largely to discourage an attack by the Soviet Union on the non-Communist nations of Western Europe. After World War II ended in 1945, an intense rivalry had developed between Communist countries, led by the Soviet Union, and non-Communist nations, led by the United States. This rivalry became known as the Cold War. NATO was established not only to discourage Communist aggression but also to keep the peace among former enemies in Western Europe. -
China becomes communist
The rise of Communism in China is mainly due to a man named Mao Zedong.Following the Boxer Rebellion1 of 1900, China's citizens experienced starvation, extreme poverty, and grief resulting in the loss of many innocent lives. This set the stage for the acceptance of men like Zedong and the godless Communistic philosophies of Karl Marx. -
The Korean War
The Korean War (1950-1953) began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid.Although Korea was not strategically essential to the United States, the political environment at this stage of the Cold War was such that policymakers did not want to appear "soft on Communism". -
Creation of the Warsaw Pact
It was a military treaty, which bound its signatories to come to the aid of the others, should any one of them be the victim of foreign aggression. The treaty was between Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union, which was signed in Poland in 1955 and was officially called 'The Treaty of Friendship'. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War first began in 1959, five years after the division of the country by the Geneva Accords. Vietnam had been split into two, with a communist government in the north under Ho Chi Minh and a democratic government in the south under Ngo Dinh Diem. Ho launched a guerilla campaign in South Vietnam, led by Viet Cong units, with the goal of uniting the country under communist rule. The United States, seeking to stop the spread of communism, trained the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. -
Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba
In the late 1950s, Fidel Castro took control of Cuba by force and has remained its dictatorial leader for over four decades. As the leader of the only communist country in the Western Hemisphere, Castro has been the focus of international controversy. He transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful attempt by United States-backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the government of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Increasing friction between the U.S. government and Castro's leftist regime led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. Even before that, however, the Central Intelligence Agency had been training anti-revolutionary Cuban exiles for a possible invasion of the island. -
The Berlin Wall Goes Up
Just past midnight on the night of August 12-13, 1961, trucks with soldiers and construction workers rumbled through East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, these crews began tearing up streets that entered into West Berlin, dug holes to put up concrete posts, and strung barbed wire all across the border between East and West Berlin. Telephone wires between East and West Berlin were also cut. Berliners were shocked and could not leave the side they were on. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was averted. -
The Six Day War
The Six-Day War was fought between June 5th and June 10th. The Israelis defended the war as a preventative military effort to counter what the Israelis saw as an impending attack by Arab nations that surrounded Israel. The Six-Day War was initiated by General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli’s Defence Minister. -
Nixon visits China
Nixon's trip to China was a critically important moment in the early history of the Sino-American rapprochement. Nixon and Kissinger met privately with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai where they confirmed understandings on sensitive issues such as Taiwan and the normalization of diplomatic relations. -
USSR invades Afghanistan
Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to support the communist government the Soviet Union had helped develop and install. Leonid Ilich Brezhnev, the Communist party leader ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.Pressure for the Soviet takeover had been building for more than a decade. Amity between the Afghan monarchy and the Soviet government had been sealed in a friendship treaty in 1921 and a nonaggression treaty in 1926, but Afghan society began to divide in the mid 1960's. -
German Reunification/Fall of Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification.The end of the Berlin Wall came officially when West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and East German prime minister Modrow together opened the Brandenburg Gate. Kohl became the first West German chancellor to set foot in East Berlin. The actual dismantling of the wall occurred in a matter of days, although Germany had remained divided for almost three decades. The reunification of Germany was finally on October 3, 1990. -
Collapse of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union collapsed when Boris Yeltsin seized power in the aftermath of a failed coup that had attempted to topple reform-minded Gorbachev. The country split into 15 different countries. The fall was largely brought by the cold war.When the Soviet Union dissolved, it let to a domino effect of communist nations collapsing.
