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The Russian Revolution
A period of political and social revolution after the abolishment of the Russian Monarchy and pathing the way for the establishment of the Soviet Union. This would later go on to create the cold war, because the opposing ideologies of the Communist Russia and the democratic United States. -
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was a meeting between the three Allies powers, America, England, and the Soviet Union. America and England wanted political freedom and democratic rule through the European countries. However Stalin had other plans, he wanted the Soviet Union to dominate Europe and to implement communist rule. This would later go on to fuel the Cold War. -
Atomic Bombs
The Atomic bomb is an entirely new class of weapon, capable of destroying entire cites in on shot. This would win us the war in Japan, and later go on to give us leverage over the Soviet Union creating many decades of fear and tension between the two world superpowers, known as the Cold War. -
Hungarian Revolution
It was a nationwide revolution against the Country's republic and Soviet-imposed policies. It was an attempt to obtain a more democratic political rule. -
Long Telegram
In an 8000 word dispatch to Washington, George F. Kennan explained Russia's insecurity. Stalin presented himself as hostile and as a threat to the outside world only to push his bloody agenda. However he would back down to any resistance. Kennan's idea of containment of Russian expansion was put in place for the next 50 years. -
Molotov Plan
The Soviet Union provided aid to help rebuild countries in eastern Europe that where loyal to The Soviet Union. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine, was an attempt to aid and protect free countries that were being forcibly put into communist control by the Soviets(Greece and Turkey). This represented a dramatic change in American Foreign policy -
Marshall Plan
After witnessing the mass destruction of European cites, and the overwhelming amounts of poor and homeless, fearing for a communist revolution George C. Marshall presented a program of mass economic assistance. It was an attempt to rebuild nations economy's to get them back on their feet. -
Berlin Blockade
This was the first international crisis of the Cold War. Stalin blockaded Berlin, not allowing the Western Allies to enter their own sectors of Germany. -
Berlin Airlift
After Stalin blockaded Germany, not allowing any goods to be brought into the city, America and Great Britain sent planes filled with food, coal and medical supplies over the walls and into the city. One plane every three minutes was over berling dropping supplies -
NATO
NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). It is an International alliance between 29 different countries originally formed to fight communism. -
First Soviet Bomb Test
This was the Soviets Unions first nuclear bomb originally named First Lightning. The design was similar to our first "Fat Man" plutonium bomb. -
Chinese Communist Revolution
After years of civil war in China, revolutionist Mao Zedong led the Communist Party of China, coverthrowing the Quing Dynasty. This would fuel the fire of communism, creating a wild fire is hungry and desperate nations. -
Alger Hiss Case
Ex communist Whittacker Chambers accused former state apartment employee Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union. A young congressman Richard Nixon pressed the case, and found Hiss guiltily. He served 5 years in prison. -
Korean War
After the communist North Korea, aided with Soviet tanks, invaded the non communist South Korea, America stepped in to help prevent the spread of communism and fought with the South Koreans. After signing an armistice agreement, America withdrew from the war in 1953. However the war wasn't entirely over, it went on to 2018 till it was officially dismissed. -
Rosenberg Trial
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were accused of espionage for selling nuclear plans to the Soviet Union. They were later set to the electric chair for betraying their country. -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
A series of court hearings investigating accusations of communist infestation in the Army. This would inevitably start the down fall for Joseph McCarthy and his fear mongering, turning McCarthyism to McCarthywasm. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, also known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, was a defense treaty between the Soviet Union and seven other socialist countries during the cold war, in response to NATO. -
Hollywood 10
Actors refusing to testify to allegations of being communist were highly suspected of being communist, and set widespread fear, and those actors where blacklisted and could not find work. -
Assassination of JFK
JFK was assassinated while driving down the street during a campaign visit in Dallas. -
U-2 Incident
An American spy airplane flown by Francis Gary Powers was shot down in Soviet Union territory while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance. -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Russia accompanied by four other communist warsaw pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia in order to snuff out reformist trends and to preserve communism. -
Bay of Pigs
It was an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba. A CIA financed group of Cuban refugees where sent in with American weapons and vehicles but suffered a humiliating defeat. -
Berlin Wall
It was a physical and ideological barrier splitting Berlin into the democratic West and Communist East. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
It was the closest we got to a Nuclear war when for 13 days the Soviets had nuclear bombs set up in Cuba which was right in our backyard. The soviets eventually agreed to remove the Missile -
Nixon visits China
This was of big significance because it was the first step of thawing tensions between America and communist counties. -
Reagan Elected
Formally a Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 against Jimmy Carter. Kown for his conservatism and anti-communist sentiment, he played an important role in the cold war. -
SDI Announced
Ronald Reagan announced SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) on National Television proposing a missile defense system that would protect America in a nuclear missile attack. (Star Wars). -
Geneva Convention With Gorbachev
Ronald Regan and Gorbachev met to talk about international relations and the arms race. Both were seeking to cut the number of nuclear weapons on both sides. -
"tear down this wall"
Ronald Reagan gave this speech to remind the Soviet Union and Gobechav that the U.S. wanted to see cold war tensions go down. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Then fall of the Berlin wall symbolized freedom for Germans, they exposed the failure of communism and marked the end of the cold war and the fall of the Iron Curtain.
