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The North Communists, led by Mao Zedong, fought against the South Capitalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek. The Communists ended up winning and strengthened ties with the Soviets, which alarmed the US. The capitalist outcasts, on the other hand, took refuge in the island of Taiwan. -
The introduction of the atomic bombs by the Americans ended the pacific theatre. In addition, the atomic bomb created a competition between the two global superpowers to possess the most nuclear warheads. -
President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act (marshall plan) which provided economic assistance to postwar Europe. This was also in order to deter countries from turning to communism. -
The blockade of the German capital was an attempt by the Soviets to limit access to the western areas of Berlin. The Soviets cut off all land and water transit between west and east Germany. -
In response to the Soviet attempt to block off East Germany, the allies flew in resources and tools directly into the capital of Berlin. The airlift delivered 2.3 million tonnes of cargo, including food, coal, water, and medicine. -
The Soviets started their own nuclear development program in 1943 and managed to develop their own nuclear weapon within a few years after the closure of WW2. With the aid of spies in the Manhatten project, the Soviets were able to level the arms race. -
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created by the US, Canada, and several Western European countries. The purpose of this was to safeguard the Allies' freedom and security through political and military means. -
Following the second world war, the US and the USSR agreed to split the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel. When North Korea invaded the South, the US stepped to defend the south, creating a proxy war. -
The US tested the first hydrogen bomb on the island of Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The resulting fireball was 3 miles wide, a height of 120,000 ft, and the mushroom cloud that followed was 100 miles wide. -
Elected President in the 1953 election, Eisenhower had many accomplishments in his presidential career. Eisenhower established NASA and the Interstate Highway System, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and kept America out of a nuclear war with the Soviets. -
Khrushchev came to power after defeating many opponents after the death of Joseph Stalin. In addition to acknowledging the crimes and atrocities committed by Stalin, Khrushchev is credited with decreasing tensions between the US and the USSR after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He then changed the foreign policy, allowing more western influence in mainstream Russia. -
The revolution's leader, Fidel Castro, led an armed uprising against the government of Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. Soon after Batista's fall from power, the US cut ties with the Cuban government, making the Cubans eager for Soviet support. -
The Warsaw Pact was the Soviet's response to the US's NATO. It was signed in Poland and included many countries, including the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. -
When nationalist forces created North Vietnam, the Soviets, and China supported them, while America supported the South. Like the Korean war, the Americans and the Soviets avoided direct conflict by backing the opposing governments and forces. -
With the development of nuclear warheads, came the demand for technology that could launch them across the world. In October of 1957, the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik, catching the Americans off guard. -
After a tight 1960 election against Richard Nixon, JFK was elected president. He was an important political leader during the cold war, until his assassination in Dallas, in 1963. -
Supported informally by the US government, Cuban exiles landed on the SouthWestern coast of Cuba with the intent of overthrowing Fidel Castro's communist government. The mission accomplished the opposite of what the US intended, as the military group failed and pushed Cuba closer to the Soviets, leading later to the Cuban Missile Crisis. -
People from the Eastern half of berlin fled to the West in great numbers as the economic difference between the West and the East was becoming more evident by the day. In order to prevent this, the Eastern government started constructing a wall. A barbed wire and concrete block fence was created in just two weeks and was eventually replaced by a 13-foot tall wall. -
The Tsar Bomba (RDS-220) was the largest nuclear missile ever built; designed as a 100-megaton hydrogen bomb, its yield was reduced to 50% when it detonated. Although the bomb detonated at an altitude of 13,000 ft, the fireball produced reached the ground. The blast pressure was measured at 300 psi and the flash of light was visible more than 600 miles away; the mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 210,000 feet -
President John F. Kennedy was informed by the CIA that American spy planes took photographs of Soviet nuclear missile launch sites being constructed in Cuba. Over the next 13 days the Cuban Missile Crisis would unfold, bringing the US and the former Soviet Union the closest ever to nuclear war. -
The Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was the largest land-based missile deployed by the US, standing at 103 ft tall and 10 ft in diameter. The missile could launch from its underground silo in just 58 seconds, carrying a W-53 warhead, which had a yield of 9 megatons of TNT. -
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and the USSR felt the need to set up a direct phone line. The president of the US, JFK, was the first to have a direct line to the Kremlin in Russia. It was first used in the Arab-Israeli war when the US explained the presence of the US navy in the Mediterranean. -
When Czechoslovakia started slipping away from the Soviet grasp, Brezhnev, declared that the USSR would not allow the countries of Eastern Europe to reject communism. This gave the Soviets the "right" to intervene in political affairs to strengthen communism, even if it would start the third world war. -
The Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia to halt reformist trends, which included freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement, along with an economic emphasis on consumer goods, and the possibility of a multiparty government. Contrary to most other invasions by the Soviets, they met no resistance from the US as the Soviets deemed that since Czechoslovakia was in their sphere of influence, the US couldn't interfere. -
Constant revolutions and protests along with Ronald Regan's statement "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," led to the East Berliners to tear down the wall. Surprisingly, the first people to start breaking the wall were the East German Border Troops. This was a symbolic end to the iron curtain that separated Europe.