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Yalta Conference
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At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world. Each leader had an agenda for the yalta conference. The Yalta conference had lead to the cold war. -
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Berlin Declaration
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On 5 June 1945 the supreme commanders of the Western powers met for the first time with their colleague from the Soviet Union. In Berlin-Wendenschloss they signed the Berlin Declaration, proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority by the four victorious powers. -
Potsdam Conference
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The Potsdam Conference is perhaps best known for President Truman’s July 24, 1945 conversation with Stalin, during which time the President informed the Soviet leader that the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. -
iron curtain speech
sourceIn one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. -
Containment Policy
sourceThe Containment Policy would adopt two approaches. One approach was military; the other was economic. In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed a program to funnel American economic aid to Europe. Faced with a rapid growth in the size of Communist parties, especially in France and Italy, the U.S. proposed a program of direct economic aid. -
Marshall plan
sourceThe Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. -
Berlin Blockade (
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The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. -
NATO
sourceThe United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe. NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military alliance against the Soviet Union throughout the duration of the Cold War -
Berlin Airlift
sourceIn response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. -
Korean War - American involvement
sourceThe Korean War began as a civil war between North and South Korea, but the conflict soon became international when, under U.S. leadership, the United Nations joined to support South Korea and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entered to aid North Korea. The war left Korea divided and brought the Cold War to Asia. -
Nikita Khrushchev
souceThe Soviet government announces that Nikita Khrushchev has been selected as one of five men named to the new office of Secretariat of the Communist Party. Khrushchev’s selection was a crucial first step in his rise to power in the Soviet Union—an advance that culminated in Khrushchev being named secretary of the Communist Party in September 1953, and premier in 1958. -
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
sourceJulius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. -
Eisenhower Presidency
source In 1952, leading Republicans convinced Eisenhower (then in command of NATO forces in Europe) to run for president; he won a convincing victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson and would serve two terms in the White House (1953-1961). -
Warsaw Pact
sourceThe Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. -
Sputnik
sourceHistory changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, -
Cuban Revolution
sourceIn the face of a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. As celebration and chaos intermingled in the Cuban capitol of Havana, U.S. policymakers debated how best to deal with the radical Castro and the ominous rumblings of anti-Americanism in Cuba. -
U2 Incident
sourceAn international diplomatic crisis erupted in May 1960 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers (1929-77) -
Kennedy Presidency
sourceJohn F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.
