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The Marshall Plan
President Truman signed th Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for the Secretary of State George Marshall -
Berlin Airlift
The first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. The Berlin blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. -
Soviet Union gets the Atomic Bomb
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. It came as a great shock to the United States, because they were not expecting the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapon knowleedge so soon. -
Communist Revolution of China
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party. The creation of the PRC also completed the long process of governmental upheaval in China begun by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The "fall" of mainland China to cummunism in 1949 led the U.S to suspend diiplomatic ties with the PRC for decades. -
Korean War
A war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. -
Execution of the Rosenbergs
Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, 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. -
The Launch of Sputnik
History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
The Kitchen Debate
The Kitchen Debate, was a series of impromptu exchanges (through interpreters) between the U.S Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the openeing of the American National Exibiiton at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. -
Building of the Berlin Wall
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germands fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authoritites built a wall that toatlly encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The day that U.S intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. -
SALT Treaty
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and iterim SALT(Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) agreement, in Moscow. For the first time during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in ther arsenals. -
SALT II Treaty
Jimmy Carter and Soviet Genreal Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks(SALT II) treaty, in Washington D.C. The SALT II Treaty banned missile programs (a new missile defined as one with any key parameter 5% better than in currently deployed missiles), so boths ides were forced to limit their new strategic missile types development. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Wall stood until, the head of the East German Communist party announced that citizens of the German Democratic Republic could cross the border wheever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself.
