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Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution was a communist revolution in Russia in 1917. This set up the ideological differences between democratic as well as capitalist America and communist Russia. -
Potsdam Conference
Soviet Union Leader Joseph Stalin and President Truman got together to discuss post war boundaries between Germany and the Eastern/Western Powers -
Atomic Bomb
During the final stage of World War II, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States dropped the bombs after obtaining the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the ideological border dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. Divided communism in East Germany and Capitalism in the west. -
Containment Policy
Containment was a United States policy under Truman to prevent the spread of communism in Europe. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of advances by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist "sphere of influence" in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. -
Truman Doctorine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet Communism expansion during the Cold War. It was made by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, and was further progressed in July, 1948, when he pledged to contain threats in Greece and Turkey economically to push them away from joining communism. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American advancement passed in 1948 to aid Western Europe through capitalism, in which the United States gave over $12 billion (nearly $100 billion in 2016 US dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. This led many people to stay under capitalism and not join communism. -
Molotov Plan
The Molotov Plan was the system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. This helped ensure people stayed in line with the lifestyle of communism. -
Hollywood 10 Trial
10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations, and, after spending time in prison for contempt of Congress, were mostly blacklisted by the Hollywood studios. -
The Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade which began 24 June 1948 and lasted until 12 May 1949 was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the split up parts of the west in post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
Berlin Airlift
In response to the Soviet blockade set on all land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive "airlift" of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the plundered city. For a year, supplies from American planes provided for the over 2 million people in West Berlin being held by Soviet control. -
NATO
NATO's primary purpose during the Cold War was to unify and strengthen the Western Allies' military response to a possible invasion of western Europe by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. This organization also helped fight the policy of containment to keep communism on their side of the Iron Curtain. -
Soviet Bomb Test
On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test, code-named 'RDS-1'. This bomb test put fear into the capitalist world and made us realize the existence of spies in our government and of the Manhattan Project. This test came years before the U.S thought they could do it. -
Alger Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was an American government official who was accused of being a Soviet/Communist spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. Before he was tried and convicted, he was involved in the establishment of the United Nations and other Government sanctions. -
Korean War
The Korean War was fought between Capitalist 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 and today the North is still a communist country -
Rosenburg Trial
The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union). Were sentenced to death and died in 1953. -
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. -
Army-McCarthur Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. -
Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference was a conference where several nations all met together in Geneva, Switzerland from April 26 – July 20, 1954. It was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War and provide unity/strength to the struggling region. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. -
Hungarian Revolution
A nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the Red Army drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the End of World War II in Europe.The revolt began as a student protest, which attracted thousands. -
U-2 Incident
Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
1,400 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
A guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin.Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
It was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba -
Assassination of Ngô Diệm
The arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of the leader of the Army of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), General Dương Văn Minh. this marked the key-point of a successful CIA-backed coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh in November 1963. -
Assassination of JFK
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. Kennedy’s motorcade was turning past the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza with crowds lining the street when the shots began. Lee Harvey was the suspect but was killed 2 days later on live TV and at blank range. A generation would remember it forever. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution after a North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox. After he authorized President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate ("The Blank Check") and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
The title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S. 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). To persuade the North Vietnamese to negotiate, President Johnson restricted the bombing of North Vietnam to the southern part of the country on 31 March 1968, in effect, bringing Operation Rolling Thunder to an end. -
Tet Offensive
Officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. used impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve civil-rights for African Americans. His death led to an outpouring of anger among black Americans, as well as a time of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing law that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. -
Assassination of RFK
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42-year-old junior senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California presidential primaries in the 1968 election. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, officially known as Operation Danube, was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany and Hungary. This triggered more than 40 long years of rule. In effect, the Czechoslovak Communists did not take control. They were given control. -
Democratic National Convention Riots
The purpose of the convention was to select a new presidential nominee to run as the Democratic Party's candidate for the office.The speaker was Daniel Inouye, Hubert H. Humphrey and Edmund S. Muskie of Maine were nominated for President and Vice President, respectively. Both Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had been running for the Democratic nomination at the time.The convention was held during a year of violence and civil unrest, particularly riots following the death of MLK. -
Election of Richard Nixon
Nixon won the election in a landslide, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states, and he was the first Republican to sweep the South. Nixon won the election in a landslide, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states, and he was the first Republican to sweep the South. -
Kent State Shooting
a shooting where four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. -
Nixon Visits China
Nixon's 1972 visit to China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that began relations between the United States and China after years of diplomatic isolation. The week-long visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited; Nixon's arrival in Beijing ended 25 years of no communication or ties between the countries and was the key step in making relations of powers. Nixon visited China to gain more leverage over relations with the Soviet Union. -
Ceasefire in Vietnam
President Richard Nixon of the USA ordered a ceasefire of the aerial bombings in North Vietnam. The decision came after Dr. Henry Kissinger, the National Security Affairs advisor to the president, returned to Washington from Paris, France with a draft peace proposal. Peace with Honor" was a phrase by Nixon which is a variation on a campaign promise Nixon made in 1968: "I pledge to you that we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam." -
Fall of Saigon City
The capital city of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces. The fall of Saigon (now Ho Chin Minh City named after their communist ruler) effectively marked the end of the Vietnam War. ... However, once US forces had left South Vietnam, the advance of the North into the South became unstoppable which led to the beginning of the formal reunification of Vietnam under Communist Rule. -
Election Of Ronald Reagan
Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild—the labor union for actors—where he worked to root out Communist influence. Four years later in 1980, he won the nomination, and then defeated incumbent president Jimmy Carter. Before winning his president election in 1980, Reagan ran for president two times in 1968 and in 1976. At 73 years old when re-elected in 1984, he is the oldest person elected president of the United States. -
Beginnings of SDI
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. The new system would cut the proposed costs of the SDI system from $53 billion to $41 billion over a decade. -
Geneva Conference with Gorbachev
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held on November 19 and 20, 1985, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race. -
‘Tear down this wall’
This was said in a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, calling for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
Fall of Berlin Wall
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. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. The shredding of the Iron Curtain. The end of the Cold War.
