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The Yalta Conference begins. This is a meeting between "The Big Three", Churchill, Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt. This ends on February 11 with the start of the Cold War.
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Germany was officially partitioned into four zones of occupation.
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Winston Churchill gives his famous Iron Curtain speech in Missouri.
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President Harry S. Truman declared it to be the foreign policy of the United States to assist any country whose stability was threatened by communism.
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George Catlett Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University. This speech initiated the post-war European Aid Program and requested "some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take".
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Communist Mao Zedong takes control of China and establishes the People's Republic of China.
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Fidel Castro takes over Cuba.
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The building of the Berlin Wall begins.
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In 1962 the Soviet Union sent nuclear missiles to Cuba. The US imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. For one week in October, the world faced the risk of nuclear war.
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The Berlin Wall is destroyed and East Germany allows unrestricted migration to West Germany.
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The Cold War ended when both the countries came together and called it off in a public conference. This was also the end of the Soviet Union.
