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House Un-American Activites Commitee 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. Reorganized from its previous incarnations as the Fish Committee and the McCormack-Dickstein Committee and with a new chairman, the cantankerous Martin Dies of Texas, HUAC's strident attacks on the Roosevelt administration prior to the outbreak of the war did -
Yalta Conference
It was when Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchhill, and Joseph Stalin agreed to meet to discuss war strategy and issues that would affect after the postwar. -
Potsdam Conference
meeting (july 17 - august 2, 1945) of the principal allies in world war 2. -
United Nations formation
The United Nations, headquartered in New York City, is an international organization established to preserve world peace and security and to develop friendly relations among all peoples. It was created in the aftermath of the Second World War and officially came into existence on October 24, 1945. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine grew out of George Kennan’s 1946 ‘long telegram’ which argued that the US should follow a policy of ‘containment’ to stop Russian expansion. Then, in February 1947, the British announced that they were withdrawing their soldiers from Greece. On 12 March 1947, Truman warned Congress that, without help, Greece would fall to Communism – and that Turkey and other countries would follow. He said that the Cold War was a choice between freedom and oppression and that American -
Marshall Plan
the Marshall Plan was a rational effort by the United States aimed at reducing the hunger, homelessness, sickness, unemployment, and political restlessness of the 270 million people in sixteen nations in West Europe. Marshall Plan funds were not mainly directed toward feeding individuals or building individual houses, schools, or factories, but at strengthening the economic superstructure (particularly the iron-steel and power industries). -
Berlin Airlift
1948–49, supply of vital necessities to West Berlin by air transport primarily under U.S. auspices. It was initiated in response to a land and water blockade of the city that had been instituted by the Soviet Union in the hope that the Allies would be forced to abandon West Berlin. The massive effort to supply the 2 million West Berliners with food and fuel for heating began in June, 1948, and lasted until Sept., 1949, although the Russians lifted the blockade in May of that year. -
NATO formation
On April 4, 1949 in Washington D.C., all five countries in the Brussels Treaty with the United States, Canada, Portugal, Iceland, Norway, Italy, and Denmark signed the North Atlantic Treaty or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Orgnization). The allies established Brussels, Belgium, as their headquarters. Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. -
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. Although McCarthy was officially censured by the Senate for misconduct in 1954 (most of his evidence was fabricated), his claims induced an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia that destroyed many careers. The term has come to signify any type of reckless political persecution or witch-hunt. -
North Korean Invasion of South Korea.
One hundred and ten thousand North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th parallel invading South Korea. North Korea was under communist rule while South Korea was a nationalist country supported by the United States. The North Koreans had been pressuring Stalin to allow for the invasion; Stalin finally conceded after deciding the United States would not become involved in the conflict. -
Rosenberg Execution
June 19 marks the anniversary of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's historic execution in 1953. Found guilty of relaying U.S. military secrets to the Soviets, the Rosenbergs were the first U.S. civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage. The Rosenbergs were accused of persuading Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, to provide them with confidential U.S. military information gained from his involvement in the development of nuclear weapons. It was believed that Julius, who was an active member of -
Armistice Signed Ending Korean War
After 2 years and 17 days of secret, difficult negotiations—during a war that lasted 37 months—an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, finally halting the fighting in the Korean War. A bloody, destructive proxy war in the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Korean War caused millions of casualties yet the border remained unchanged: the armistice left the two Koreas divided at the 38th parallel, just as they had been when the war began. Today, a 2.5-mile-wide d -
Warsaw Pact formation
The Warsaw Pact is the name commonly given to the treaty 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, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance'. -
Sputnik 1 Launched
History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S. -
First man in space
April 12 was already a huge day in space history twenty years before the launch of the first shuttle mission. 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 a meeting in Vienna in 1961, Kruschev demanded that US troops be pulled out of Berlin; when Kennedy refused, the Soviet-backed East Germans built a wall around West Berlin in order to prevent East Germans from fleeing. This raised tensions to a new level, as Soviet and US weapons faced off; however, Kennedy didn't order the construction to stop and even traveled to Berlin. -
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. They did experiments. They picked up bits of moon dirt and rocks. They put a U.S. flag on the moon. They also left a sign on the moon. -
First American in space
From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
