-
Period: to
Cold War
-
Iron Curtain begins to crumble in Europe
The Iron Curtain is the wall that divides the Soviet Union with the rest of Europe. It began to crumble when -
Berlin Airlift
The U.S. carried over 3.2 million tons of goods to West Berlin by plane to aid the Brittish occupied zone -
NATO Forms
NATO stands for North American Trade Agreement, which is an intergovernmental military alliance between Canada, USA, and Mexico. -
Korean War starts
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. The United States backed south Korea and still remains there for defense. -
US H-Bomb
The United States detonated the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States an advantage in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union donated their first Atomic Bomb in September 1949, the United States developed the next stage in atomic weaponry, a thermonuclear bomb. Popularly known as the hydrogen bomb, this new weapon was 1,000 times more powerful. -
Warsaw Project
The Warsaw Pact, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to NATO, as a collective defense treaty among Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. -
S.U. Launch Sputnik
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball. 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.S.R space race. -
Berlin Wall
The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brough -
Cuban Mission Crisis
Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba, aligned himself with the Soviet Union. Under Castro, Cuba grew dependent on the Soviets for military and economic aid. This is when the U.S. and the Soviet Union weren't on good terms, causing tensionn between the U.S and Cuba. -
SALT 1
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement on May 26, 1972, in Moscow. For the first time during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. -
Mikhail gorbachev comes to power
Mikhail Gorbachev. Mikhail Gorbachev, in full Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born March 2, 1931, Privolye, Stavropol kray, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet official, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 to 1991 and president of the Soviet Union in 1990–91. -
Major Arms control agreement is reached
In talking about arms control during the Cold War, I will focus on the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Control aspect of it. This is of course by no means the whole picture; it leaves out, among other things, the Nonproliferation Treaty. -
Soviet Union Collapses
In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. -
European Union Established
The European Union is set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours, which culminated in the Second World War. As of 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community begins to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six founders are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. -
Al Qaeda attacked the U.S.
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. -
United states invaded Iraq
On this day in 2003, the United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiates war on Iraq/Al Queda. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”