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Joe McCarthy begins communist witch hunt
He was the father of the Red Scare, the movement that helped push the United States into a decades-long cold war with Russia. He helped make “Communist” the dirty word in American politics that it is today. -
Korean War Begins
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Federal Civil Defense Administration Established
Started by Harry S. Truman on December 1st 1950 the FCDA or Federal Civil Defense Administration was a very important organization that helped the government reach out to the people. The type of information that they released were important news about communism and warnings on attacks and current wars going on. -
Rosenberg executions
On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for treason and conspiracy to commit espionage by passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. -
Korean War Ends
The Korean War armistice was signed in Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting. -
KGB Established
The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (Russian: Комите́т госуда́рственной безопа́сности (КГБ). Translated in English as Committee for State Security), was the main security agency for the Soviet Union -
CIA helps overthrow unfriendly regimes in Iran and Guatemala
Representing only a fraction of the existing government files, these records nonetheless revealed the determination of the CIA to prohibit the spread of communism to the nations of Latin America during the Cold War. -
Vietnam split at 17th parallel
Discussions on the Vietnam issue started at the conference just as France suffered its worst military defeat of the war, when Vietnamese forces captured the French base at Dien Bien Phu. -
Warsaw part formed
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Rebellion put down in Communist Hungary. Egypt took control of Suez Canal; U.S. refused to help take it back.
On October 29, 1956, Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal in July of that same year, initiating the Suez Crisis. -
Sputnik Launched Into Orbit
Launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 was the first man-made object to orbit the Earth. The surprise launch of Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957, carried with it the first living passenger into orbit, a dog named Laika. Humbled, the United States began to heavily invest in its space program. -
Khrushchev demands withdrawal of troops from Berlin
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) led the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, serving as premier from 1958 to 1964. -
Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro recruited former members of the Nazi SS to train Cuban troops during the Cold War, newly released German secret service files have revealed. -
Khrushchev visits US; denied access to Disneyland
In 1959, Soviet Leader, Nikita Khruschev, visited Los Angeles for a day. He really wanted to go to Disneyland but was told that he could not because of security concerns. He ended up throwing a bit of a tantrum over the incident and never got to go to Disneyland.
