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atomic bomb
Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II. -
Molotov Plan
The Soviet Union's economic plan to rebuild countries in Eastern Europe - their response to the Marshall Plan. -
U.S. aid to Greece
Truman won bipartisan support in March 1947 for the Truman Doctrine, which gave $300 million in military and economic aid to Greece. -
Truman Doctrine
President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology, mainly helped Greece and Turkey -
U.S. aid to Turkey
Truman appeared before a joint session of Congress. In his eighteen-minute speech, he stated: ... In May 1947, two months after Truman's request, a large majority of Congress approved $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. -
Marshall Plan
(officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) in which was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
Berlin airlift
Supplied food and fuel to citizens of West Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin. -
NATO established
is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949 -
USSR gets atomic bomb
It would only be a matter of months before the U.S.S.R. exploded its own atomic bomb. The Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear device, called RDS-1 or "First Lightning". -
Communist win China
Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
Coup in Iran
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom -
Coup in Guatemala
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954 -
Warsaw Pact formed
treaty signed in 1945 that formed an alliance of the Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain; USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania; this was in response to NATO -
Beginning of troops in Vietnam
The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. -
Communist Angola
The People's Republic of Angola covers the period of Angolan history as a self-declared socialist state established in 1975 after it was granted independence from Portugal, akin to the situation in Mozambique. -
Suez Canal Crisis
The Suez Crisis or the Second Arab–Israeli War also named the Tripartite Aggression and Operation Kadesh or Sinai War, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. -
Cuba (Missile Crisis)
major confrontation that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. -
China explodes atomic bomb
The People's Republic of China joins the rank of nations with atomic bomb capability, after a successful nuclear test on this day in 1964. China is the fifth member of this exclusive club, joining the United States. -
Coup in Chile
was known for its stability in Latin America compared to its neighbors. The Cold War began to affect the mountainous nation, and Chile became a part of the Alliance for Progress. -
End of troops in Vietnam
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. -
Sandinistas rise up in Nicaragua
encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to violently oust the dictatorship in 1978–79 -
Soviets invade Afghanistan
Decade-long attempt by Moscow to subdue the Afghan civil war and maintain a friendly and socialist government on its border. -
War in El Salvador
The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, a coalition or "umbrella organization" of several left-wing groups. -
Star Wars (S.D.I.)
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
Evil Empire Speech
was first applied to the Soviet Union in 1983 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who took an aggressive, hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities. -
Iran Contra Affair
A secret U.S. government arms deal that freed some American hostages held in Lebanon but also funded armed conflict in Central America. In addition, the controversial dealmaking—and the ensuing political scandal—threatened to bring down the presidency of Ronald Reagan. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Fall of the USSR
December 26, 1991, officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. -
Buffer State of the USSR
A Buffer state is a country that acts as a neutral state between two hostile or rival countries.
