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The Truman Doctrine was passed in order to provide aid for countries that were at threat of being exposed to communism. This doctrine was passed in order to stop the spread of communism. -
In June of 1947, The Secretary of State, George Marshall, proposed a plan in order to help European countries combat poverty, disease, and malnutrition, and to also make sure democratic countries could survive after WWII. -
The Rio Pact was a treaty signed by the U.S. and 19 other countries in Central and South America. This pact was created in order to protect other countries in the Americas. An attack on one of these countries would be considered an attack on all of them. This pact was also known as the "hemispheric defense" doctrine. -
In February 1948, the communist party in Czechoslovakia, with aid and support from the Soviet Union, managed to take undisputed control of the government of Czechoslovakia. Later elections in May were then rigged in the communist party's favour. -
The Brussels Treaty, signed by Britain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands, created a collective defensive alliance and was made to protect western European countries from communism. This eventually led to the creation of NATO and The Western European Union. -
In order to try and gain control of the entire city, The Soviet Union decided to blockade West Berlin from all access routes. The US responded with the Berlin Airlift, where they delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies for West Berlin. -
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is created to provide protection for many European countries from the Soviet Union, or other possible invaders. The founded members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. -
After realizing that the Berlin Blockade turned out to be useless, due to the west getting around it by flying the supplies in, the Soviets lifted the blockade on land access from West Berlin. -
In August of 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, which was known in the west as Joe-1. The bomb was tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan. -
After the Soviet Union successfully tested its own atomic bomb, Truman wanted to reinstate U.S. superiority. He approved the development of a new H-Bomb (Hydrogen Bomb) which was theorized to be over a hundred times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. -
During a time period in the U.S, known as the Red Scare, many were afraid of communism spreading throughout the country. Joe McCarthy, or McCarthyism, were set on catching communists and putting them on trial for working for the Soviets. Dozens were put on trial for treason, including some higher-up officials. -
In June of 1950, with aid and support from The Soviet Union, North Korea (Northern Korean People's Army) invaded South Korea over the 38th parallel, hoping to conquer the South and reunited Korea under the North Korean regime. This prompted the United States and The UN to get involved and send aid to the south. -
The Federal Civil Defense Act (FCDA) was created in order to administer the national civil defense program and to coordinate military, industrial, and civilian mobilization, in case of a surprise attack on military buildup. -
During the red scare, and the communist witch hunt, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were put on trial for selling U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. After a long time of debate and sharing evidence, the two were eventually found guilty and sentenced to death. -
General Douglas MacArthur led troops in the pacific during WWII and the eventual surrender of Japan, but after the start of the Korean War, Truman chose MacArthur to lead the U.S. troops in South Korea. During this time, MacArthur made a lot of controversial moves, for example; after pushing back the North Koreans, he kept pushing over the 38th parallel and suggested bombing China and North Korea to cut off North Korean aid. Truman realized MacArthur downplaying the threat of war in Asia. -
The 1952 Cuban coup d'état took place in Cuba on March 10, 1952, when the Cuban Constitutional Army, led by Fulgencio Batista, intervened in the election that was scheduled to be held on June 1, staging a coup d'état and establishing a de facto military dictatorship in the country. -
After the United States and the Soviet Union, Britain became the third country in the world to test nuclear weapons. The first British test, code-named 'Hurricane', was conducted at the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. -
The world's first thermonuclear weapon test, code-named Mike, was carried out by the United States at Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands, on November 1, 1952. Thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs, use the energy of a primary fission explosion to ignite a hydrogen fusion reaction. -
After Stalin passed away, doctors began their examination to figure out how he died. Due to Stalin's reign of terror, many of his best doctors were either arrested or too afraid to treat the dying dictator. After examination, they concluded that Stalin, who had a known history of uncontrolled hypertension, had sustained a hemorrhagic stroke involving the left middle cerebral artery. -
The revolution began in July 1953 and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución; in Spanish: "Day of the Revolution." -
American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China–or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the conflict. -
On March 1, 1954, the United States tested an H-bomb design on Bikini Atoll that unexpectedly turned out to be the largest U.S. nuclear test ever exploded. They thought it would yield the equivalent of 5 million tons of TNT, but, in fact, "Bravo" yielded 15 megatons; making it more than a thousand times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. -
The Geneva Accords were signed in July of 1954 and split Vietnam at the 17th parallel. North Vietnam would be ruled by Ho Chi Minh's communist government and South Vietnam would be led by emperor Bao Dai. -
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had led the fight in Congress to root out suspected Communists from the Federal Government. The censure described his behavior as "contrary to senatorial traditions." He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. -
The Warsaw Pact or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. This was in retaliation to the west forming NATO. -
China and the Soviet Union provided massive military and economic aid to North Vietnam, which enabled North Vietnam to fight first the French and then the Americans. Chinese aid to North Vietnam between 1950 and 1970 is estimated at $20 billion. As the world's largest communist powers, both the Soviet Union and China gave moral, logistic, and military support to North Vietnam. They hoped to build and expand communism in Asia. -
Ngo Dinh Diem, prime minister under Bao Dai since July 1954, is elected president of South Vietnam. He displaces Bao Dai and wins with 98 percent of the vote. Observers, and later historians, note that the election is rigged, though many concede that Diem would likely have won regardless. -
When Khrushchev made his “secret speech,” he shocked the gathered representatives at the Party Congress. Over the course of his address, he condemned the brutality of the Stalinist regime, particularly the purges that led to the torture and execution of some wholly innocent party loyalists. He began a program called "Destalinization" in which he ordered from any statue, painting, and anything relating to Stalin be removed. -
The Hungarian Revolution began on 23 October 1956 in Budapest when university students appealed to the civil populace to join them at the Hungarian Parliament Building to protest against the USSR's geopolitical domination of Hungary by the Stalinist government. Hungary is then viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. -
Accompanied by a band of 81 men on board the yacht Granma, Castro landed in eastern Cuba on December 2, 1956, but most of the force was quickly killed or captured. -
When the prime minister of China visited the Soviet Union, it was terrifying news for the west, because this new alliance could lead to an even bigger spread of communism in Asia. -
Following the Suez Crisis in 1956, The U.S. had temporarily stopped providing aid to Israel to go and assist in the Suez Canal Crisis, which many other nations in the United Nations had got involved in, such as Britain, France, etc. -
Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 at Christmas Island in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean (modern Kiribati) as part of the British hydrogen bomb program -
Explorer 1 became the first successfully launched satellite by the United States when it was sent to space on January 31, 1958. A quick response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, Explorer 1's success marked the beginning of the U.S. Space Age. -
After Krushchev had an argument with a Chinese general, it came out in a paper that stated; A vivid account of the day Nikita Khrushchev warned a Chinese general not to spit at him and Mao Zedong called Soviet leaders "timeservers" has been published for the first time. With all this tension, Krushchev demanded an end to nuclear testing to avoid mass destruction. -
On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech in which he demanded that the Western powers of the United States, Great Britain, and France pull their forces out of West Berlin within six months; threatening action if the west refused. -
When the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Havana in the early hours of, 1 January 1959, Fidel Castro was 550 miles away, at the opposite end of the island. Although, Castro didn't know this, so when he and his troops marched into Havana, he wasn't met with much resistance and Castro was able to take power. -
The state visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the United States was a 13-day visit from 15–27 September 1959. It marked the first state visit of a Soviet leader to the US. During his tour, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev toured the IBM factory in San Jose, California. While visiting, the innovation Khrushchev was most fascinated by was not the computers, but rather the company's cafeteria. -
On the 22nd of September, 1959, the UN held another vote to decide whether or not The People's Republic of China would be admitted to the United Nations. The vote came back as a majority no for China's entry. -
The NATO Integrated Air Defense System (short: NATINADS) is a command and control network combining radars and other facilities spread throughout the NATO alliance's air defense forces. -
In the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy, of the democratic party, defeated a previous vice president under Eisenhower, Richard Nixon in a very close ballot count. John F. Kennedy had become the 35th President of The United States. -
North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front on December 20, 1960, at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh Province to foment insurgency in the South. Many of the Viet Cong's core members were volunteer "regroupees", southern Viet Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). -
The Bay of Pigs invasion was an invasion of Cuba in April 1961 by 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. It derives its name from the location of the invasion, the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), also known to Cubans as the Playa Girón (Girón Beach), on Cuba's southwestern coast. The invasion ended up being a catastrophe for the U.S, with many of the exiles being captured. -
Nikita Krushchev and John F. Kennedy met up in Vienna to talk about current issues in the world. One of the main ones was the topic of Berlin. Khrushchev wanted the US to sign a peace treaty and remove its troops from West Berlin, but Kennedy refused. -
The USA was afraid that communism would spread to South Vietnam and then the rest of Asia. It decided to send money, supplies, and military advisers to help the South Vietnamese Government. The U.S' biggest fear was the domino effect, where if South Vietnam fell, would Laos, Cambodia, and other countries in South Asia fall to communism. -
On February 7, 1962, President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order broadening the United States' restrictions on trade with Cuba. The ensuing embargo, which effectively restricts all trade between Cuba and the United States, has had profoundly negative effects on the island nation's economy. -
After the failed U.S. attempt to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion, and while the Kennedy administration planned Operation Mongoose, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reached a secret agreement with Cuban premier Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt. -
After a secret agreement was made between Kennedy and Krushchev to try and ease tensions between the two; In November, Kennedy called off the blockade of Cuba from Soviet Ships, and by the end of the year, all the offensive missiles had left Cuba. Soon after, the United States quietly removed its missiles from Turkey. -
The Hot Line was a way of direct communication between Krushchev and Kennedy and was used so both sides could talk and try and resolve any conflict or crisis happening at the time, all in order to keep tensions as low as possible to avoid any nuclear action. -
The US President, John F Kennedy, made a ground-breaking speech in Berlin offering American solidarity to the citizens of West Germany. A crowd of 120,000 Berliners gathered in front of the Schöneberg Rathaus (City Hall) to hear President Kennedy speak. He also went there to challenge Soviet oppression and offer hope to the people of the divided city. -
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States of America is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred in August 1964. North Vietnamese warships purportedly attacked United States warships, the U.S.S. Maddox and the U.S.S. C. Turner Joy, on two separate occasions in the Gulf of Tonkin, a body of water neighboring modern-day Vietnam. -
The People's Republic of China conducted its first nuclear test, making it the fifth nuclear-armed state after the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France. China had initiated its nuclear weapons program in the mid-1950s, after the Korean war. -
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China serving from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and helped the Communist Party rise to power. In November of 1964, Enlai visited the Soviet Union to try and improve relations between The Soviet Union and China. -
Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced in parliament that Australia would send a battalion of combat troops to Vietnam. The decision was motivated by a desire to strengthen strategic relations with the United States and halt the spread of communism in South-East Asia. -
In September of 1965, The Soviet Union admitted to providing aid to North Vietnam. The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam through its ally China; The Soviet Union was also North Vietnam's biggest supplier. They supplied their communist allies with food, petroleum, transport vehicles, iron, steel, fertilizer, arms, and ammunition. -
As tensions in Vietnam started to become higher, Johnson wanted to try and ease tensions with the North. After offering peace talks to Ho Chi Minh, leader of North Vietnam, Minh denied the offer for peace talks, not wanting to make any deals with the U.S. Minh wanted to reunite Vietnam under a communist regime, so he didn't want to make any deals or peace. -
French president Charles de Gaulle urges the United States to get out of Vietnam. In a speech before 100,000 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, President Charles de Gaulle of France denounces U.S. policy in Vietnam and urges the U.S. government to pull its troops out of Southeast Asia. -
In 1966, France decided to withdraw from the Alliance's integrated military command. This doesn't mean that France withdrew from NATO entirely, they were still willing to uphold their commitment to defending other NATO members. As General de Gaulle put it, the aim was to change the form of our Alliance without changing its substance. -
In 1965, The U.S. began an operation called Operation Rolling Thunder, in which the U.S. would carry out bombing raids on North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, U.S. aircraft bomb the major North Vietnamese population centers of Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time, destroying oil depots located near the two cities.