The Cold War

  • Joseph McCarthy (Date of Birth)

    Joseph McCarthy (Date of Birth)
    Joseph McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican Senator from the state of Wisconsin. He served from 1947 until his death in 1957. He also served proudly in WWII. Joseph believed that there were communists and Russian spies in American government, and society. He would make a list of the names of people he believed to be communists, but he was never able to prove that they really were.
  • Iron Curtain

    Iron Curtain
    The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military.
  • United Nations

    United Nations
    The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded after the ending of WWII in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, and to stop wars between countries from happening in the future.
  • Red Scare and Joseph McCarthy (Time is when McCarthy started in office)

    Red Scare and Joseph McCarthy (Time is when McCarthy started in office)
    After WWII and into the 1960s the threat of communism in the United States was spreading. Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, made a list of people who believed to be Communist. When Americans found out about McCarthy's list they damanded to see who was on it, and to know how McCarthy came to the conclusion that they were Communists. Also, after the public found out about McCarthy's list they began to view who they were friends with, and who their neighbors were more suspiciously.
  • Truman Doctrine and Containment

    Truman Doctrine and Containment
    The Truman Doctrine was when President Truman declared that it was a foreign policy of the United States to assist any country whose stability was threatened by communism. President Truman's Doctrine was followed by the Marshall Plan.
  • Marshall Plan

    Marshall Plan
    The Marshall Plan was created by George Marshall. He created it to help the poor and devestated cities of Western Europe. He believed that in order for America to restore political stability in Western Europe they had to first fix their economies. It was officially known as the European Recovery Program.
  • CIA

    CIA
    • The CIA was created in 1947 to replace the WWII OSS, as it was now the Cold War, and correct intelligence information was essential in maintaining the security of the US
    Curiously, it was signed into effect by Harry Truman within four weeks immediately after the Roswell Incident. Its first director was Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, former rear admiral, and the first Secretary of Defense, also created in 1947, was former Sec. of the Navy, James Forrestal.
  • Berlin Airlift

    Berlin Airlift
    The Berlin Airlift was an airlift that supplied vital necessities to West Berlin. It was initiated in response to a water and land blockade of the city created by the Soviet Union to hopefully force the Allies to abandon West Berlin.
  • Korean War (Time is when the war began)

    Korean War (Time is when the war began)
    The Korean was fought between communist and non-communist groups in Korea. North Korea was supported by the People's Republic of China and recieved weapons and military aid from the Soviet Union, and South Korea was supported by the United Nations.North Korea was Communist, and South Korea was non-Communist. In the end the two sides reached and agreement, and agreed to separate Korea into two parts, North Korea and South Korea.
  • Vietnam War

    Vietnam War
    The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies. More than 3 million people (including 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War; more than half were Vietnamese civilians.
  • Hawks and Doves

    Hawks and Doves
    The Doves wanted to call for the end of the bombing of North Vietnam and they wanted to negotiate to end the war completely. Hawks, included a majority of Republicans and a number of southern Democrats, all theses poeple said that American troops were necessary to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asian land wars.
  • Sputnik

    Sputnik
    • Launched October 4, 1957, the Sputnik satellite was the first to enter Earth’s orbit. It was launched by the former Soviet Union. Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
  • Space Race

    Space Race
    The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority.
  • Bay of Pigs

    Bay of Pigs
    The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days.
  • Cuban Missle Crisis

    Cuban Missle 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.