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The use of the Atomic Bomb
During the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. -
Gouzenko Affair
In early September 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher clerk stationed in Ottawa, fled the Soviet Embassy bringing with him documents indicating the presence of an extensive espionage ring operating throughout North America. Amy Knight recounts in riveting detail his escape and then discusses the response of the Canadian, American, and British governments to this information -
Formation of the United Nations
The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories. -
Formation of NATO
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) -
Korean War
The Korean War was fought between South Korea and communist North Korea. It was the first major conflict of the Cold War as the Soviet Union supported North Korea and the United States supported South Korea. The war ended with little resolution. The countries are still divided today and North Korea is still ruled by a communist regime. -
Formation of the Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War occurred in present-day Vietnam, Southeast Asia. It represented a successful attempt on the part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam, DRV) and the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (Viet Cong) to unite and impose a communist system over the entire nation -
Suez Crisis
On October 29, 1956, Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal in July of that same year, initiating the Suez Crisis. The Israelis soon were joined by French and British forces, which nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict, and damaged their relationships with the United States. In the end, the British, French and Israeli governments withdrew their troops in late 1956 and early 1957. -
Formation of NORAD
On August 1st, 1957 an agreement was announced that a new organization was to be formed between Canada and the United States to be known as NORAD or the North American Air Defence Agreement. -
Cancellation of the Avro Arrow
Avro Arrow (CF-105), an advanced, supersonic, twin-engined, all-weather interceptor jet aircraft developed by A.V. Roe of Canada from 1949 until the government's controversial cancellation of the project in 1959. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in 1962 when the Soviet Union began to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. The United States refused to allow this and, after thirteen tense days and many secret negotiations, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles. This is perhaps the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war during the Cold war. -
SALT treaty
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and interim SALT agreement on May 26, 1972, in Moscow. For the first time during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. -
strategic defense initiative
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. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, as 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. -
Break up of the soviet union
The collapse of the Soviet Union started in the late 1980s and was complete when the country broke up into 15 independent states on December 25, 1991. This signaled the end of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.
