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The Allies of World War II (USA, USSR, Great Britain, & France) divide Germany into 4 occupation zones.
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President Truman gives permission for the world's first military use of an atomic weapon against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WWII in the Pacific was brought to a swift closure.
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Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War" to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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The Soviet Union declares the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to be the legitimate government of all of Korea.
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is founded in order to resist Communist expansion.
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The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb. The Soviet Union becomes the world's second nuclear power.
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Mao Zedong declares the People's Republic of China - adding a quarter of the world's population to the communist side.
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The Soviet Union declare their zone of Germany to be the German Democratic Republic. Its capital at East Berlin.
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United Nations forces engage North Korean forces for the first time.
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An armistice agreement ends fighting in the Korean War.
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The Warsaw Pact is founded in Eastern Europe and includes East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. It acts as the Communist military counterpart to NATO.
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Sputnik satellite launched and triggers the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA is formed to counter the Soviet Union's space program
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The Berlin Wall is built by the Soviet Union following the breakdown in talks to decide the future of Germany.
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The Soviet Union secretly installed nuclear weapons on Cuba. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of the island that intensified the crisis and brought the US and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war. In the end, both sides reached a compromise.
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The Gulf of Tonkin Incident leads to the open involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War.
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The Paris Peace Accords end American involvement in the Vietnam War.
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The U.S.S.R. nuclear early warning system reported launch of multiple U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles. The incident was correctly identified as a false alarm and nuclear warfare was avoided.
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During a visit to Berlin, Germany, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in a speech: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (The Berlin Wall).
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The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Some later claim this was the official end of the Cold War.
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The Berlin Wall is breached and borders were opened.
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At the end of the Malta Summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush declare that a long-lasting era of peace has begun. Many observers regard this summit as the official beginning of the end of the Cold War.
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Warsaw Pact is formally dissolved.
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US President George H. W. Bush, after receiving a phone call from Boris Yeltsin, delivers a Christmas Day speech acknowledging the end of the Cold War.
