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United Nations Formation
The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, an organization conceived in similar circumstances during the First World War, and established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security. -
yalta confrence
At Yalta, the decision at Teheran to form a United Nations organization was confirmed. -
Potsdam confrence
On 16 July 1945, the "Big Three" leaders met at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. In this, the last of the World War II heads of state conferences, President Truman, Soviet Premier Stalin and British Prime Ministers Churchill and Atlee discussed post-war arrangements in Europe, frequently without agreement. -
Truman Doctrine
On 12 March 1947, President Truman spoke to Congress. His speech is very famous. What he said became known later as the ‘Truman Doctrine’. -
Marshall Plan
On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
NATO Formation
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Berlin Airlift
In june 1949, u.s drops food and supplies to berlin germany. -
Era of McCarthyism begins
Period of political persecution during the 1950s, led by US senator Joe McCarthy, during which many public officials and private citizens were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers. -
North Korean Invasion of South Korea
North Korea has invaded South Korea at several points along the two countries' joint border. -
Rosenberg Execution
On February 2, 1950, Klaus Fuchs, a physicist who had worked on the development of the atomic bomb, was arrested. The year before, America learned that the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb and a scientific report from Klaus Fuchs to the Soviet Union about the Manhattan Project was deciphered. As the government investigated Soviet spy-rings in the United States, arrests were made. The arrests of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg garnered worldwide attention and controversy. -
Armistice Signed Ending Korean War
On July 27, 1953, the Korean War ended when the United States, China, and North Korea signed an armistice. The President of South Korea did not sign but agreed to abide by the agreement. -
Warsaw Pact Formation
N APRIL 1985, the general secretaries of the communist and workers' parties of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and Romania gathered in Warsaw to sign a protocol extending the effective term of the 1955 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, which originally established the Soviet-led political-military alliance in Eastern Europe. -
Sputnik 1 Launched
History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. -
House Un-American Activities Committee formed
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties -
First American in Space
On May 5, 1961, Mercury Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (right, headed to launch) blasted off in his Freedom 7 capsule atop a Mercury-Redstone rocket (left). His 15-minute sub-orbital flight made him the first American in space. -
First Man in Space
On that day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (left, on the way to the launch pad) became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Newspapers like The Huntsville Times (right) trumpeted Gagarin's accomplishment. -
Creation of the Berlin Wall
In 1948 the Berlin Blockade furthered the problems that led up to the creation of the Berlin wall. -
First Man on the Moon
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours.