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An Iron curtain descends across Europe
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Berlin Airlift occurs and Czechoslovakia becomes the last Eastern European to become Communist
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Creation of East and West Germany
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China comes to the aid of North Korea and forces UN troops to retreat
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North Korea invades South Korea
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The Korean War ends with a cease fire and Korea remains divided at the 38th parallel and Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dies.
On July 7th 1953, the communists signed a ceasefire, thus ending the fighting in Korea, due to increasing UN air power pressure. The end of combat created the famous Demilitarized Zone or "DMZ" between the two Koreas. -
The French lose the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and decide to pull out of Indochina
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Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier and Austria reunifies under the condition they remain neutral in the Cold War.
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Soviets crush a revolt in Hungary while the West does nothing
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Sputnik I is launched
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American U-2 spy plane is shot down by the Soviet Union
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Construction begins on the Berlin Wall & the Bay of Pigs Invasion occurs.
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Cuban Missile Crisis occurs
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Assassination of John F. Kennedy
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The Gulf of Tonkin Indicident occurs and the United States' Congress passes the Guld of Tonkin Resolution and Leonid Brezhnev becomes the leader of the Soviet Union
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President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first 60,000 ground troops to Vietnam
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Tet offensive occurs
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Detente begins
Détente was a period of easing of tensions in the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. During this time, trading and cooperation between the US and the Soviet union increased. President Nixon traveled to Moscow to discuss matters such as arms limitation, prevention of nuclear war, and trade between the US and the Soviet Union with Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin and Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev. -
United States and North Vietnam agree to a cease fire
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The last combat troops leave South Vietnam and the nation falls to Communist North Vietnam
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Soviet-Afghan War begins
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Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia, dies and Lech Walesa establishes the Solidarity Movement in Poland
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Mihkail Gorbachev becomes the leader of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet union withdraws troops from Afghanistan, Romanian uprising ousts Nicholae Ceausescu and his wife, and the USSR allows the dismantling of the Berlin Wall
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Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania declare their independence and East and West Germany reunite under Chancellor Helmut Kohl
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Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan declare independence and Gorbachev resigns
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Czechoslovakia becomes the Czech Republic and Slovakia