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Formation Of The United Nations
The Formation of the United Nations, 1945. On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. -
Period: to
Cold War
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Postdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference, 1945. The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. -
Iron Curtain Descends On Europe
Prime Minister Churchill, at an address in Fulton, Missouri, on March 12, stated: "From Stettin in the Baltics, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." Thus, Churchill put forth the concept that Europe had been divided between East and West. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. -
Creation Of Isreal
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel," a state independent upon the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine. -
Berlin AirLift
In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
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). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Korean War
The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) [a] was a war between the Republic of Korea (South Korea), supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), at one time supported by China and the Soviet Union. -
Stalin Dies
Stalin dies from a massive heart attack. -
Warsaw Pact Formed
The Warsaw Treaty Organization, 1955. The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. -
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. -
Sputnik 1 & 2
The world, especially the US, was shocked, when on October 4, 1957, the USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1.
The name comes from a Russian word for "traveling companion of the world." Weighing just 83 kg (184 lbs.), Sputnik 1 was lofted into space by an R7 rocket. It carried a thermometer and two radio transmitters. Circling the earth once every 96.2 minutes it transmitted atmospheric information by radio, but its two transmitters only functioned for 21 days. After 5 -
NASA Formed
After the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action -
Boy Of Pigs Invasion
On April 17, 1961, 1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Berlin Wall Constructed
Berlin Wall. On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. -
Cuban missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
John F. Kennedy Is Assassinated
John Fitzgerald was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963. -
Vietnam war (U.S Involvment)
In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. -
USS Pueblo
On 20 January at 5:30 p.m. (17:30), a North Korean modified SO-1 class Soviet style sub chaser passed within 4,000 yards of Pueblo, which was about 15.4 miles southeast of Mayang-do.
In the afternoon of 22 January, the two North Korean fishing trawlers Rice Paddy 1 and Rice Paddy 2 passed within 30 yards of Pueblo. That day, a North Korean unit made an assassination attempt against the South Korean President Park Chung-hee. -
Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty
Five states are recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty as nuclear weapon states (NWS): China (signed 1992), France (1992), the Soviet Union (1968; obligations and rights now assumed by the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom (1968), and the United States (1968) (The United States, UK, and the Soviet Union -
UN Resolution 2758
adopted on October 25, 1971, replaced the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) (ROC) with the Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) as the sole representative of China in the United Nations. -
Nixon Visits China
1972 Nixon visit to China. Richard Nixon meets with Mao Zedong in Beijing, February 21, 1972. U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States (U.S.) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). -
Salt 1 & Salt 2 Agreeents
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. -
Paris Peace Accords
Vietnam War. The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam formally sign "An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" in Paris. -
South Vietnam Falls
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (also known as the Viet Cong) -
Iran Hostage Crisis
Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days. After a group of Iranian students, Belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who were supporting the Iranian Revolution took over the US Embassy in Tehran. -
USSR Invades Afghanistan
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) -- Encyclopedia Britannica. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. -
U.S & Soviet Boycott Of The Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott of the Moscow Olympics was a part of a package of actions initiated by the United States to protest against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. It preceded the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott carried out by the Soviet Union and other Communist-friendly countries. -
Iran Contra Affair
the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.[3] Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of several hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had -
Korean Airline Flight 007
Soviet jet fighters intercept a Korean Airlines passenger flight in Russian airspace and shoot the plane down, killing 269 passengers and crewmembers. The incident dramatically increased tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. -
U.S Invades Grenada
Operation Urgent Fury was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 91,000 located 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela, that resulted in a U.S. victory within a matter of weeks. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Cold War. Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. -
Chernobyl Disaster
The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyla nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operatorsb. -
Dissolving Of The Soviet Union
Thirteen months later, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Union of Soviet Union Republics dissolved. President Bush and his chief foreign policy advisers were more pro-active toward Russia and the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Communist monolith than while it was teetering.