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Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War took place between 1943 to 1949. It was mainly fought by the Communist Party of Greece and its military branch against the established Kingdom of Greece (supported by the United Kingdom and the United States). The Kingdom won in the end. -
Formation of the Eastern Bloc
At the end of World War II by mid-1945, all eastern and central European capitals were controlled by the Soviet Union. During the final stages of the war, the Soviet Union began the creation of the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics that were originally effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany. -
Occupancy of Germany
Following the collapse and defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the victorious Allies asserted joint authority and sovereignty over Germany as a whole. The four powers divided "Germany as a whole" into four occupation zones for administrative purposes under the three Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Blockade
During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
Enactment of Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution was a period of social and political revolution in China that began with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, continued through the First United Front of the 1920s. The Communist victory had a major impact on the global balance of power: China became the second major socialist state, and, after the 1956 Sino-Soviet Split, a third force in the Cold War. -
Korean War
The Korean War (also known by other names) was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The Korean War (also known by other names) was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. -
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries against the military dictatorship of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953, and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. -
Iranian Coup D'état
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953. It was orchestrated by the United States and the United Kingdom. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies; South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies.The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. -
Hungarian Uprising
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and the Hungarian domestic policies imposed by the USSR. Initially anarchic, during the Hungarian Uprising the Hungarian people culminated in protests against domestic policies imposed by the USSR, and the people formed together in protest against the Soviet Union. -
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989 as well as encircling and separating West Berlin from East German territory. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 35-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, which escalated into an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and statehood over the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, in opposition to the State of Israel. -
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms. -
Soviet War in Afghanistan
The Soviet–Afghan War was a conflict wherein insurgent groups known collectively as the Mujahideen fought a nine-year guerrilla war against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and the Soviet Army throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The Mujahideen were variously backed primarily by the United States, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Kingdom; the conflict was a Cold War-era proxy war. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Tiananmen Square Massacre was an event in which troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later and the German reunification took place in October the following year. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the process of internal disintegration within the Soviet Union (USSR) which resulted in the end of the country's and the federal governments existence as a sovereign state, thereby resulting in its constituent republics gaining full sovereignty. -
9/11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamic extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners mid-flight. The hijackers successfully crashed the first two planes into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.