||Introduction||       ||What is the Cold War?||       ||Vocabulary||       ||Primary Documents||       ||Photographs||      

||Time Line||       ||Additional Links||       ||Bibliography/Credits||

1940s

1945: February 4-11-- Cold War Begins Yalta Conference [Germany had to be limited, to be divided into parts. Representative Franklin D. Roosevelt with the other 2 discuss the fate of Germany]

1945: August 6 -- United States first used atomic bomb in war

1945: August 8 - Russia enters war, being the opponents of Japan

1945: August 14 - Japanese surrender/End of World War II

1948: February - Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia

1948: June 24 - Berlin Blockade begins [Playing a significant role in Europe, the city of Berlin was the centerpiece of the Cold War. East met West in this city where they were divided. That was soon to be recognized as "Iron Curtain."]

1949: May 12 -- Berlin Blockade ends [many escaped 2,750,000]

1949: September - a communist takes control of China

1949: September - Soviets explode first atomic bomb

1950s

1950: February 2 - Arrest of an physicist who worked on a development of the atomic bomb, named Klaus Fuchs

1951: January 12 -- Federal Civil Defense Administration established [Civil defense was a priority and with the spending increase, shelters were built due to the threat of weapons that the Soviet Union stored.]

1953: June 19 - The Rosenberg executions happened [they sold secrets and were spy's for the Soviet Union]

1953: July -- Korean War ends

1954: March -- The security agency of the Soviet Union was established, called the KGB.

1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed

1956: October - November -- Rebellion put down in Communist Hungary. Egypt took control of the Suez Canal; U.S. refused to help control this situation and take it back

1959: January -- Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro

1960s

1960: May -- Soviet Union found out that U.S. spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory

1960: November -- John F. Kennedy elected President

1961: April -- Bay of Pigs invasion

1961: July -- Kennedy requests and argument on  25% spending increase for military should be necessary

1961: August 13 -- Berlin border closed

1961: August 17 -- Construction of Berlin Wall begins

1962: -- U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased

1963: November - President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas

1965: April - U.S. Marines sent to Dominican Republic to fight Communism

1968: January - North Korea taken the  U.S.S. Pueblo

1970s

1970: April - President Nixon extends Vietnam War

1973: October - aid was requested in the territories of Egypt.

1974: August - President Nixon resigns from imperial government positions.

1975: April 17 - North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam

1980s

1983: - President Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative

1986: October - Reagan's way to remove all  nuclear missiles from Europe

1987: October - by signing a treaty Reagan and Gorbachev agree to remove any sort of medium nuclear missiles

1989: January - Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan

1989: September - Hungary becomes independent

1989: November --Berlin Wall falls

1989: December - Communist governments fall in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania; Soviet empire ends

1990s

1990: October 3 - Germany reunited

1991: April - Warsaw Pact ends

      1991: August - The cold war ended suddenly in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. It was the western victory.