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Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. Very self explanatory. -
Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. -
Japan's Invasion of China
Also known as the Second Sino-Japanese War; a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1941. Chine fought Japan alongside their German, American, and Soviet allies. -
Germany invades Poland
Beginning WW2 by invading Poland from the land and air. -
Battle of Britain
The first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces between Germany and the UK. -
Tripartite Pact
Also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Adolf Hitler, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. -
Lend-Lease Act
The principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to move arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” By allowing the transfer of supplies without compensation to Britain, China, the Soviet Union and other countries, the act permitted the United States to suppo -
German Blitzkrieg on Soviet Union
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. However, this failed. -
Leningrad Blockade
a prolonged military operation undertaken by the German Army Group North against Leningrad—historically and currently known as Saint Petersburg—in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. The siege started on 8 September 1941, when the last road to the city was severed. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
A surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii which led to the U.S. entering in WWII. -
Formation of the U.N.
26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. -
Wannsee Conference
A meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942 to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. -
Battle of Midway
a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. [6][7][8] Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage -
D-Day
more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. -
Yalta Conference
The World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization/get rich quick plan. -
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
The attack on both islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa by Japan and friends/allies that lasted for 82 days in an attempt to take over the land for better room for Japan's air force. -
Hitler’s suicide
Hitler had repaired to his bunker on January 16, after deciding to remain in Berlin for the last great siege of the war. Fifty-five feet under the chancellery (Hitler’s headquarters as chancellor), the shelter contained 18 small rooms and was fully self-sufficient, with its own water and electrical supply. He left only rarely (once to decorate a squadron of Hitler Youth) and spent most of his time micromanaging what was left of German defenses and entertaining such guests as Hermann Goering, Hei -
VE Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Potsdam Conference
also known as the Berlin Conference of the Three Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and UK; participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (V-E Day). -
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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. -
VJ Day
Victory over Japan day being the day Japan surrendered which eventually led to the end of WWII. -
Marshall Plan
The European Recovery Program, ERP; America gave $13 billion (approximately $120 billion in current dollar value) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Mao Zedong and the People's Republic of China
The proclamation was the climax of years of battle between Mao’s communist forces and the regime of Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek, who had been supported with money and arms from the American government. The loss of China, the largest nation in Asia, to communism was a severe blow to the United States, which was still reeling from the Soviet Union’s detonation of a nuclear device one month earlier. -
Korean War
was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union -
Stalin’s death; Khrushchev
Believed to have been taken by a massive heart attack; Khrushchev rose to power. -
Warsaw Pact
A collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. -
Vietnam War
a Cold War-era proxy war[37] that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War (1946–54) and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies—and the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies. -
Sputnik!
The first artificial Earth satellite launched by the Soviet Union which began the Space Race. Detectable radio pulses aometimes interfered with technology and scared the public and puzzled those of war. Scary stuff. I love Space history. -
Bay of Pigs
a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506; part of the Cold War. -
Berlin Wall
a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989 constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Soviet Union falls
formally enacted on December 26, 1991, as a result of the declaration no. 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, acknowledging the independence of the erstwhile Soviet republics and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – although five of the signatories ratified it much later or not at all.
