The Cold War By Swick Feb 4, 1945 Yalta Conference May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders to the Allies in WWII, Victory in Europe Jul 15, 1945 Potsdam Conference Aug 7, 1945 US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Aug 15, 1945 Japan surrenders to the Allies in WWII, Victory in Japan, End of WWII Mar 5, 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech by Churchill Mar 10, 1947 Truman Doctrine Period: Apr 20, 1947 to Apr 20, 1957 McCarthyism/Red Scare begins Apr 3, 1948 Marshall Plan Apr 16, 1948 Berlin, Germany, blockade by USSR and US airlift Sep 20, 1948 Poland Becomes Communist Apr 14, 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization organized May 12, 1949 Berlin, Germany, blockade ends Jun 25, 1950 Korean War begins Nov 4, 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower elected PotUS Mar 5, 1953 Joseph Stalin, leader of USSR, dies Jun 19, 1953 Rosenberg spy execution Jul 27, 1953 Korean War ends Apr 26, 1954 Vietnam Split at 17th parallel Sep 8, 1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (S.E.A.T.O.) created May 14, 1955 Warsaw Pact Formed Nov 1, 1955 American involvement in Vietnam Jan 5, 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine Oct 4, 1957 USSR Sputnik in Orbit Mar 27, 1958 Khrushchev becomes leader of USSR Jan 1, 1959 Fidel Castro takes over Cuba Jul 24, 1959 Khrushchev and Nixon have "Kitchen Debate" May 1, 1960 U.S. U2 spy plane shot down over USSR May 7, 1960 Leonid Brezhnev becomes leader of USSR Nov 8, 1960 John F. Kennedy elected President of the United States Apr 12, 1961 USSR Astronaut Yuri Gagarin orbits earth Apr 17, 1961 Bay of Pigs, Cuba invasion by the US Aug 13, 1961 Berlin Wall construction begins Aug 13, 1961 Berlin, Germany, border closed Oct 14, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Jun 26, 1963 President John F. Kennedy delivers famous "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech Nov 22, 1963 President JFK assassinated/LBJ becomes President of the United States Aug 2, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident - start of Vietnam War Jan 31, 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam Nov 5, 1968 Richard M. Nixon elected President of the United States Jul 20, 1969 U.S. puts first man on the moon Feb 21, 1972 President Richard M. Nixon visits China Jan 28, 1973 Ceasefire in Vietnam Aug 9, 1974 President Richard M. Nixon Resigns/Gerald R. Ford becomes President of the United States Apr 30, 1975 End of Vietnam War with the fall of Saigon Nov 2, 1976 Jimmy Carter elected President of the United States Oct 26, 1978 Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church (John Paul II) Period: Nov 4, 1979 to Jan 20, 1981 Iranian Hostage Crisis Dec 24, 1979 USSR invades Afghanistan Jul 19, 1980 United States boycotts 1980 summer olympics Nov 4, 1980 Ronald W. Reagan eleceted President of the United States Nov 10, 1982 Leonid Brezhnev dies Mar 11, 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of Soviet Union Jun 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan delivers Berlin Wall speech May 15, 1988 Russian troops withdraw from Afghanistan Nov 8, 1988 George H.W. Bush elected President of the United States Apr 4, 1989 Poland becomes independent Apr 15, 1989 Tiananmen Square in China Nov 9, 1989 Berlin Wall falls Oct 3, 1990 East and West Germany reunite Jun 13, 1991 Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia Jul 1, 1991 Warsaw Pact ends Dec 25, 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as leader of the Soviet Union Dec 26, 1991 Soviet Union dissolves/Cold War ends
