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More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Moscow. It became the foundation of American foreign policy, and led, in 1949, to the formation of NATO, a military alliance that still exists. Historians often use Truman's speech to date the start of the Cold War. -
This was a program of economic aid offered by the United States to any European country. The plan was rejected outright by Stalin and any Eastern Bloc country considering accepting aid was reprimanded severely. Consequently, the aid was only given to Western European Countries. -
United Nations General Assembly call for elections in Korea. Hundred and twelfth plenary meeting, 14 November 1947. UN Resolution 112 (II), "The Problem of the Independence of Korea," calls for elections to be held and for foreign troops to withdraw in order to achieve the unification of the Korean Peninsula. -
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. On March 3, 1948 Masaryk, was found dead, probably murdered. -
Russia’s response to the merger of the French, USA and UK partitions of Berlin was to cut all road and rail links to that sector. This meant that those living in Western Berlin had no access to food supplies and faced starvation. Food was brought to Western Berliners by US and UK airplanes, an exercise known as the Berlin Airlift. -
Cominform was initially located in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, but after the Tito–Stalin split expelled Yugoslavia from the group in June 1948, the seat was moved to Bucharest, Romania. Officially, Yugoslavia was expelled for "Titoism" and anti-Sovietism, based on accusations of deviating from Marxism-Leninism. -
A system of collective defense, each members agreed to mutually defend another member in response to an attack from an external party. NATO set the stage for mass containment of the Soviet Union and their expansion of communism across Europe. -
The United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany. The crisis ended on May 12, 1949, when Soviet forces lifted the blockade on land access to western Berlin. -
Alger Hiss was a suspected of being a communist spy. A federal grand jury indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury. After a mistrial due to a hung jury, Hiss was tried a second time, and in January 1950 he was found guilty and received two concurrent five-year sentences, of which he eventually served three and a half years. -
The Joint Chiefs made the case to Truman that the hydrogen bomb “would improve our defense in its broadest sense, as a potential offensive weapon, a possible deterrent to war, a potential retaliatory weapon, as well as a defensive weapon against enemy forces.” -
After five years of simmering tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when the Northern Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, the line dividing communist North Korea from the non-communist Republic of Korea in the south. -
Inch'ŏn landing, in the Korean War, an amphibious landing by U.S. and South Korean forces at the port of Inch'ŏn, near the South Korean capital, Seoul. A daring operation planned and executed under extremely difficult conditions by U.S. Gen. -
MacArthur had already turned down Air Force proposals to fire bomb North Korean cities, and suggested that atomic bombs could be used to isolate North Korea by taking out bridges and tunnels. The Army staff considered this impractical. -
The Mutual Security Act of 1951 launched a major American foreign aid program, 1951–61, of grants to numerous countries. It largely replaced the Marshall Plan. The main goal was to help poor countries develop and to contain the spread of communism. It was signed on October 10, 1951, by President Harry S. -
Truman asked Congress to approve military and economic aid to Yugoslavia. On this day in 1951, President Harry S. Truman asked Congress to approve military and economic aid to Yugoslavia, a communist nation in Eastern Europe that had broken with the Soviet Union. -
Greece was formally welcomed as one of NATO's first new members since the creation of the Alliance in 1949, along with Turkey. His Majesty King Paul I, king of the Hellenes, signs the Instrument of accession for Greece in Athens on 11 February 1952. -
The United States tested its first thermonuclear device (hydrogen bomb) on the island of Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands about 3,000 miles west of Hawaii. Code named Ivy Mike, the device was detonated remotely from a distance of about 30 miles. -
The 1952 United States presidential election was the 42nd quadrennial presidential election and was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, becoming the first Republican president in 20 years. -
Joseph Stalin, second leader of the Soviet Union, died on 5 March 1953 at his Kuntsevo Dacha at the age of 74, after suffering a stroke. He was given a state funeral in Moscow on 9 March, with four days of national mourning declared. -
It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on July 26th, 1953. -
On July 27, 1953, military commanders from the United States (representing the United Nations Command), the Korean People's Army, and Chinese People's Volunteer Army signed the Korean Armistice Agreement, ending roughly three years of fighting of the 1950-1953 Korean War. -
On January 21, 1954 First Lady Mamie Eisenhower launched the world's first nuclear submarine at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Shipyard in Groton. Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president's wife to ever christen a submarine in the United States Navy. -
The French-held garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam fell after a four-month siege led by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh. After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the French pulled out of the region. -
The elected leftist Guatemalan government is overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. An unstable rightist regime installs itself. Opposition leads to a guerrilla war with Marxist rebels in which major human rights abuses are committed on all sides. Nevertheless, the regime survives until the end of the Cold War. -
The Baghdad Pact is founded by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. It is committed to resisting Communist expansion in the Middle East. March: Soviet aid to Syria begins. -
The Geneva Summit of 1955 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Held on July 18, 1955, it was a meeting of "The Big Four": President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France. -
President Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. -
"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", popularly known as the "Secret Speech". This was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. -
The 1956 Poznań protests, also known as Poznań June (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests against the communist government of the Polish People's Republic. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of the Polish People's Army and the Internal Security Corps under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the pacification fired at the protesting civilians. -
Hungarians revolt against the Soviet dominated government. They are crushed by the Soviet military, which reinstates a Communist government. October 29: Suez Crisis: France, Israel, and the United Kingdom attack Egypt with the goal of removing Nasser from power. -
US president Dwight Eisenhower promises military intervention to assist Middle Eastern nations if they were threatened by communist aggression. This position becomes known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. -
After Stalin's death, Gromyko returned to Moscow, resumed his position as first deputy foreign minister, became a full member of the Central Committee in 1956 and was appointed Soviet foreign minister in 1957. As foreign minister he served under Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. -
President Eisenhower receives a report from his scientific advisory committee. The Gaither Report, as it becomes known, announces a ‘missile gap’ and recommends the construction of more missiles and a network of nuclear shelters. -
Nikita Khrushchev replaces Nikolai Bulganin as prime minister of the Soviet Union. He was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. -
King Faisal II of Iraq is overthrown and assassinated in a coup d’etat led by young army officers. Iraq enters a decade of political instability and its new leaders seek alliances with Soviet bloc countries. -
US warships are sent into the Taiwan Strait after the People’s Republic of China bombards the island of Kinmen and Taiwanese forces return fire. The fighting continues for a month and claims almost 3,000 lives. -
Fuchs was arrested and, in January 1950, confessed. He was convicted of espionage and given a sentence of 14 years. He was released in 1959, after having served only nine years, and shortly thereafter moved to East Germany to resume his physics career. -
The Kitchen Debate (Russian: Кухонные дебаты, romanized: Kukhonnye debaty) was a series of impromptu exchanges through interpreters between U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, then 46, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nikita Khrushchev, 65, at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. -
The US, the Soviet Union and ten other nations sign the Antarctic Treaty. It maintains Antarctica for scientific research and outlaws military bases or operations there. -
US president Dwight Eisenhower endorses a CIA plan to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba by supporting an invasion by Cuban exiles. This gives rise to the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. -
A Soviet fighter jet shoots down an American reconnaissance plane over the Barents Sea. Four American crewmen are killed and two others taken prisoner by the Soviets. -
On September 16, 1960, Kennedy and Nixon took part in the first televised debate between presidential candidates. Kennedy looked and spoke better than Nixon. Journalist Russel Baker said, “That night, image replaced printed word as the national language of politics." -
Assuming office in the midst of the Cold War, JFK understood that his inaugural address would have to instill confidence at home and respect abroad. He believed that democracy thrives only when citizens contribute their talents to the common good and that it is up to leaders to inspire citizens to acts of sacrifice. -
Known as Big Ivan to the Soviets and as Tsar Bomba in the US, RDS-220 was the largest nuclear weapon ever built. Designed as a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb, its yield was reduced by 50% when it was tested. The device was air-dropped from an altitude just above 34,000 feet over the Mityushikha Bay test site on Novaya Zemlya Island -
John F. Kennedy authorises the deployment of 18,000 military advisors to support the struggle against communist insurgents in South Vietnam. -
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia. This happened on August 7, 1962. -
In response to these factors, Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, agreed with the Cuban Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, to place nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba to deter a future invasion. -
President John F. Kennedy was briefed by the CIA that an American U-2 spy plane had taken photographs of Soviet nuclear missile launch sites under construction in Cuba. He formed a group of advisors that would later become the Executive Committee (Ex Comm) to develop the US response. -
On August 5, 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. After Senate approval, the treaty that went into effect on October 10, 1963, banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. -
On 2 November 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, was arrested and assassinated in a successful coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh. The coup was the culmination of nine years of autocratic and nepotistic family rule in the country. -
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. This was a major event in U.S. History. -
It was reported that a US Navy vessel exchanged fire with North Vietnamese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin off the NV coast. Two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. In response to these reported incidents, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. -
When Khrushchev was removed from power in October 1964, Kosygin replaced him as Premier in a collective leadership that included Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary and Nikolai Podgorny who ultimately became Chairman of the Presidium. -
China exploded an atomic bomb at 15:00 hours on October 16, 1964, thereby successfully carrying out its first nuclear test. This is a major achievement of the Chinese people in their struggle to strengthen their national defence and oppose the U.S. imperialist policy of nuclear blackmail and nuclear threats. -
Sir Winston Churchill, the British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, died on 24 January 1965, aged 90. His was the first state funeral in the United Kingdom for a non-member of the Royal Family since Edward Carson's in 1935. -
The Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign began on March 2, 1965, partly in response to a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. air base at Pleiku. The Johnson administration cited a number of reasons for shifting U.S. strategy to include systematic aerial assaults on North Vietnam. -
On March 8, 1965, under the direct order of President Johnson, some three thousand five hundred marines of the Ninth Marine Expeditionary Brigade came ashore on the beach at Da Nang. These marines were the first U.S. combat troops to enter the war. -
Robert Menzies retires as prime minister of Australia. He is replaced by Harold Holt. -
In 1966, due to souring relations between Washington and Paris because of the refusal to integrate France's nuclear deterrent with other North Atlantic powers, or to accept any collective form of control over its armed forces, French president Charles de Gaulle downgraded France's membership in NATO and withdrew France from the NATO Military Command Structure to pursue more independent defense options. -
The Soviets launch Luna 10, the first man-made probe to orbit the Moon. Luna 10 was the first spacecraft to go into orbit around the Moon, and the first human-made object to orbit any body beyond the Earth.