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Russian revolution
The Russians were sick and tired of fighting a seemingly endless war. During a protest for higher bread rations turned into a popular rebellion and Tsar was over thrown. Vladimir Lennon came back to Russia to support communism, he started the Bolsheviks, in October 1917 Lennon launched his revolution. After he took over the government he started seizing property and bank accounts. -
Iron Curtain
After world war two Russia kept a "buffer zone". He used the countries of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania for a buffer this cut Europe in half and spliting it was the iron curtain -
Potsdam Conference
A conference between the leaders of Russia, America, and Great Britain after World War 2. The meeting was to discus what to do with the liberated countries. -
Atomic bomb: Hiroshima/Nagasaki
The Russians were on there way to help the U.S. win the war against the Japanese. We couldn't let the Russians take anymore land because they were not planning on letting them have free elections. The Japanese didn't seem like they were going to surrender any time soon and Russia was getting close so we dropped the atomic bomb to force the Japanese to surrender. -
Hollywood 10
During the cold war many actors were accused of being communist sympathizers but ten of the actors stood up against the government and were held in contemplative court -
Molotov Plan
The system that provided aid to the European countries that were aligned with Russia. -
Truman Doctrine
President Truman says that any democratic nation that needs military, politic, and economic system if they are being threatened from communist nations will be helped. -
Marshall Plan
the initiative to help western European countries in which the U.S. donated 13 billion. We could't let the newly poverty struck countries to fall to communism because only poor countries and people think communism is a good idea -
Berlin Blockade
The first major international crisis of the cold war. Russia blocked the western powers out of the western controlled territory. -
Berlin Airlift
After the Russians blocked off the capital of Germany from the allied forces they dropped supplies to them since the Russians didn't allow supplies in. -
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization; an intergovernmental military alliance between several north american countries and European states. -
Soviet bomb test
The soviets tested their first atomic bomb it was almost equal in size to the first atomic bomb tested by the u.s. -
Alger Hiss case
in 1948 Alger Hiss was accused by ex-communist Whittaker Chambers to be a communist and sending top secret reports to Chambers. He was convicted -
Korean War
75,000 Russian backed North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th parallel to South Korea. They battled with American help back and forth across the 38th parallel and called off the war with nothing to gain and we lost 5 million soldiers. -
Rosenberg trial
The trial of a couple who were accused of selling us nuclear secrets to the soviet union. They were found guilty and executed -
Army-McCarthy hearings
McCarthy accused members of the army of being communists and the army then charged McCarthy with improper influence to win preferential treatment for a former staff member. -
Geneva Conference
A conference in Geneva, Switzerland It was held to resolve issues from the past wars in Korea and Vietnam. They signed a ceasefire and France withdrew its forces in Vietnam. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Vietnam agreed to be a autonomous state under the french union but when the french tried to take colonial rule over Vietnam they fought back. So when the French troops occupied Dien Bien Phu the Vietnamese surrounded them with 40,000 troops and after 52 days of siege the french lost and ended french occupation of Vietnam but would soon be filled by america -
Warsaw Pact
the soviet union and its satellite countries signed a pact in Warshaw. It was a defense organization that put Russia in charge of armed forces of the satellites. -
Hungarian Revolution
Hungary had an uprising against soviet control and on the 12th day, November 4th, of the uprising soviet tanks were ordered in and crushed the rebels. 30,000 rebels were killed and a quarter million Hungarians fled the soviet rule to other countries -
U2 Incident
The united states was flying a u2 spy plane over the u.s.s.r. when it was shot down and recovered by the soviet union and also captured its pilot. He was sentenced to ten years in prison but two years into his sentence the U.S. traded a Soviet spy for the captured U.S. spy. -
Bay of Pigs invasion
Fidel Castro led his guerrilla army into Havana and over threw General Fulgencio Batista who was supported by the U.S.. The united states trained 1,400 Cubans to go back to Cuba and invade it but Fidel Castro had more troops and was over within 24 hours -
Berlin Wall
The Soviet Union built a concrete and barbwire wall between east and west Berlin to keep fascists from entering east Germany but it was there to keep its citizens from leaving. When the head of the East German Communist Party announced its citizens could pass freely many brought picks and hammers and broke the wall down. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The united states got images of nuclear armed soviet missiles in cuba 90 miles away from the United States. The United States's response was to form a naval blockade around Cuba and warned them that they are not afraid to use military force to neutralize the threat. Kennedy avoided nuclear war by promising not to invade Cuba and removing U.S. missiles in Turkey for the Soviet Union removing missiles in Cuba. -
Assassination of Diem
During the over throw of the government by south Vietnamese military forces the president and his brother were captured and killed by a group of soldiers. -
Assassination of JFK
The president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a convertible while driving the streets of Dallas.The shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald he allegedly shot 3 shots from the sixth floor. Later that night Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president of the united states on the Air Force One where 30 people witnessed including JFK's Wife who still had blood stains from her dead husband. Then 7 minutes later they flew back to Washington. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
A document from congress giving President Johnson the power to take any measures necessary to retaliate and to promote maintenance of international peace. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
An american bombing campaign in North Vietnam that lasted two years. It was done to halt the ability for Vietnam to attack. -
Tet Offensive
The Vietnamese attacked virtually every military and political center in south Vietnam, it killed Linden Johnson's presidency. during the offence they captured the u.s. embassy and killed 5 people. The entire thing was filmed by news crews. The viet cong broke int a radio station and set off a bomb that killed themselves and destroyed the building -
Assassination of MLK
A baptist minister who was a leader of the civil rights activism for equal rights was assassinated. He practiced non violence and all of his followers did the same. -
Assassination of RFK
After winning the California primary he was giving a speech at the Ambassador hotel in L.A.. He Left the hotel through the kitchen where a worker pulled out a gun and shot him 3 times -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
200,000 Warsaw pact troops and 5,000 tanks are sent to Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Summer". Prague Summer is a brief period of legalization -
Riots of Democratic convention
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago thousands of Vietnam war protesters battle police in the streets. While the democratic party falls apart from not being able to decide what they want to do about Vietnam. -
Election of Nixon
Nixon lost a bitter campaign for governor of California everyone thought his political career was over but he recovered it enough to run for president and won in 1968 with his Vietnamization plan -
Kent State shootings
During a protest against the Vietnam war members of the Ohio state police started opening fire on the crowd, 4 people were killed and 9 were injured. -
Nixon visits China
Nixon visits China to reestablish relationship with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) . It is a dramatic first step but it begins the slow process of reestablishing diplomatic relations with China -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
When the ceasefire went into effect Saigon controlled 85 present of the south Vietnamese population and 75 percent of its territory. The Vietnamese army was well equipped from last minute drops to finish the war. -
Fall of Saigon
Vietnamese troops storm the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon. Television cameras captured the fall of Saigon and marked the end of Vietnam -
Reagan elected
He was originally an actor in Hollywood who was actually accused by Joseph McCarthy of being a communist. President Ronald Reagan is elected in 1981 and becomes the 40th president of the united states. -
SDI announced
The Strategic Defense Initiative also known as star wars the intent of the program was to built a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to stop nuclear strikes on the United States. President Reagan announced on live TV that the project was finished but it was far from being finished to discourage the russians -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
Not really anything happened no one made any big agreements but Gorbachev and Reagan start a friendly relationship. -
'Tear down this wall’ speech
After world war two Berlin which is in East Germany, Soviet Union territory, was split in four pieces and the Russian side built a wall to keep the citizens in and the U.S. out. President reagan went to the wall and gave a speech saying "Tear down this wall" -
Fall of Berlin Wall
The East Berlin's Communist Party announced that there was a change in relations with the west, and starting midnight that day the citizens of the GDR were free to cross the countries border and many flocked to the wall with hammers and picks and broke the wall down.
