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Potsdam Conference
In late July through early August, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Wnston Churchill and American President Harry Truman met in Potsdam, Germany to discuss the terms for the end of World War II. The most significant event of the conference occured at the end when President Truman admitted to Soviet leader Stalin that he had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb. Stalin's cavalier reaction would ignite a rivalry which would lead to the cold war. -
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The Cold War
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Soviets seize power of East Europe
In the months preceding World War II the Soviets took control over the countries in Estern Europe which were recently liberated from Nazi rule. The Soviet government seized power of their government and created a satellite state in Albania, This effectively extended the borders of Stalin's power. -
Truman Doctrine
Amidst the post-war chaos and the spread of communism in Europe, President Truman enacted the Truman Doctrine which saught to contain the spread of Soviet power. It also allocated the use of $400 million as aid to Greece and Turkey, which were under threat by the Soviet military. This signifies the first time that the United States outwordly opposed the practices of the Soviet Union and laid the foundation for further tensions. -
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Starting in the summer of 1948 the Soviet Union blocked the food supply for the citizens of western Germany and Berlin by closing access to Allied railways and roads. In response the United States, along with other supporting countries, started airlifting in supplies to starving men, women and children in need. This signified the opposing ideological visions that the United States and the Soviet Union had over postwar Europe. It also marked the first major crises of the Cold War. -
USSR tests first atomic bomb
Following the Soviet's successful infiltration of the top secret, American "Manhattan Project", the Soviets completed their first test of the atomic bomb. This was only the first of many tests to come but it would mark a new and dangerous turn in the Cold War. This marks the beginning of the arm's race between the United States and the Soviet Union and would elicit widespread panic from the public of nuclear war. -
Communists Win Chinese civil war
In October of 1949, Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Party defeated Chiang Kai-Shek's Naionalist government. Promptly after the defeat, the Soviets sought to form an alliance with the victors. This communist alliance strengthened international communist ideals and created an even larger divide between the west and the east. Photo: http://www.rantpolitical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/getty_chinese_civil_war-copy.png -
The Korean War
Korea was divided after World War II with the Soviet Union controlling the north and the United States controlling the south. The conflict escalated between the two warring nations regarding who held legitimate power of Korea. The Soviet Union declared war in mid-1950. This conflict created a huge divide in America regarding military presence and invoked widespread panic of nuclear fallout. Picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Korean_War_Korean_civilians-ca1951.jpg -
The Warsaw Pact
The Soviets lead the formation of a peace alliance between eight communist states in central and eastern Europe. Its main goal was to maintain military control in the region and to maintain the prinicples of communist ideals. The significance of this was that it divided even more of the world as the United States and its allies declared that war on one nation would be a war on all nations. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
This was a failed military invasion of Cuba which sought to overthrow the new Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. Unfortunately the event ended in disaster with U.S. troops being defeated by the local military and the majority being put into Cuban prisons. This was a huge blow to the United States as it strengthened the ties between Cuba and the USSR. -
Stalin Builds Berlin Wall
Starting in 1950, emigration rose drastically within the Eastern Bloc mainly due to the restrictive Soviet-style system that was set up. In the first three years of the 1950's, almost 900,000 people defected to west Germany alone. In responce to this mass emigration, Stalin ordered a wall to be built dividing west Berlin from east Berlin. He claimed this was to prevent the spread of radical facsit (western) beliefs. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Upon failure of the United States at the Bay of Pigs, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev formed an agreement with Cuban leader Fidel Castro to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. Pesident John F. Kennedy formed an agreement with the soviets that the U.S. would never invade Cuba and that American nuclear missiles would be removed from Turkey and Italy. The condition was that the Soviets had to remove their weapons. This was the climax of the Cold War and soon nuclear disarmament would be discussed. -
China Tests First Atomic Bomb
After the Soviets gained a political and ideological ally in China after the Chinese revolution in 1949 there was the possibility that knowledge of nuclear weapons was passed to the Chinese. So it was no surprise to American intelligence when, in mid-October of 1964, the Chinese sucessfully tested their first atomic bomb. Dubbed project 596 by Chinese authorities, this had the result of widening tensions between China and the USSR, who sought to reduce the construction of nuclear weapons. -
Saigon Falls
The Vietnam War was, essentially, a war between American and Soviet ideals. The USSR allied with China and North Vietnam and the U.S sided with South Vietnam. The U.S feared that if North Vietnam were to win the result would be a spread of communism across southeast Asia. After almost twenty years of fighting, with litte result, Americans began to withdraw troops from the capitol Saigon. The result was one of the most humiliating and controversial losses in the entirety of U.S history. -
U.S. and China Establish Diplomatic Ties
After almost thirty years of alliance between the Soviets and China, the U.S. and China announced that they would establish formal diplomatic relations involving trade relations and the opening of U.S. embassies in Beijing. This had enourmous significance for the Cold War because it shifted alliances between the U.S., USSR and China. -
Gorbachev Reforms
During the mid-1980s, the economy in the USSR saw a significant decline resulting in the drop of oil prices. New president Mikhail Gorbechev, believed that deeper structural changes were needed in order to improve the economy. In 1987 he declared Perestroika and Glasnost which increased openness within state institutions and relaxed state and consumer enterprises. The significance of this is believed, by some, to be the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Wall Falls
The official collapse of eastern European communist ideals began with the destruction of the Berlin wall in late 1989. After border relations relaxed starting in August of that year in cities across eastern Europe, a flood of refugees grew at the wall. The numbers reached a climax on November 9 when a large mob formed at the wall where they started destructing the wall using various tools. This event marked the unofficial end of communism in east Europe. -
Gorbachev Coup Attempt
When Gorbachev announced his government reforms in 1987 many hard-line communists grew furious at his attempts to fix the Soviet economy. In August of 1991, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union attempted to overthrow the government and return it to its traditional communist ideals. After a short three days of civil unrest the coup collapsed. The effects of this coup destabalized the governmet and is widey considered one of the factors in the collapse of the USSR. -
Soviet Union Collapses
After years of protests, a failed coup attempt, and the destruction of the Berlin wall, the government of the USSR declared the official end of the Soviet Union and created a commonweath of indepenent states, which was now controlled by Russian president Boris Yeltsin. At 7:32 p.m. on December 25, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time and was replaced by the pre-revolutionary Russian Flag. This event signifies a victory for freedom and democracy the world over.
