Timeline By facebooker_1648017842111849 Mar 8, 1917 Russian Revolution Sep 1, 1939 Start of WWII May 8, 1945 VE day Aug 6, 1945 Hiroshima Aug 9, 1945 Nagasaki Sep 2, 1945 VJ Day Oct 4, 1945 United Nations created Feb 22, 1946 George Kennans telegram: containment Mar 5, 1946 Iron Curtain speech Mar 12, 1947 Truman Doctrine Feb 25, 1948 Czechoslovakia Coup: becomes communist Apr 3, 1948 Marshall plan approved Jun 25, 1948 Berlin Airlift begins Apr 4, 1949 NATO is formed Aug 29, 1949 First successful Soviet Atomic test Oct 1, 1949 China becomes communist Jun 25, 1950 Korean War starts Mar 5, 1953 Stalin dies; Krushchev takes over Jul 27, 1953 Date Korean war ends May 14, 1955 Warsaw Pact created Oct 24, 1956 Hungarian revolt Oct 4, 1957 Sputnik launch May 1, 1960 U2 spyplane incident Aug 13, 1961 Berlin Wall goes up Oct 14, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Aug 7, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resoluton Jan 5, 1968 Prague Spring Nov 13, 1968 Leonid Brezhnev doctrine Jul 16, 1969 Apollo 11 Apr 30, 1975 Fall of Saigon Dec 24, 1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan Aug 14, 1980 Polish Workers strikeat Gdansk Shipyard Oct 19, 1983 Lech Walesa wins the Nobel Prize Jun 12, 1987 Ronad Reagan gives speech at Brandenburg gate May 15, 1988 Soveits retreat from Afghanistan Nov 9, 1989 Berlin Wall comes down Mar 14, 1990 Gorbachev becomes the leader of the USSR Dec 8, 1991 CIS (commonwealth of Independent States) is created