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Yalta Conference
A meeting of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt early in February 1945 as World War II was winding down. -
VE-Day
The day (May 8) marking the Allied victory in Europe in 1945. -
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Potsdam Conference
The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. -
Atom Bomb
The atom bomb was dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan by the U.S devastating the world. -
VJ-Day
The day (August 15) in 1945 on which Japan ceased fighting in World War II, or the day (September 2) when Japan formally surrendered. -
Iron Curtain Speech
One of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union's policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” -
Truman Doctrine Announced
The principle that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection. First expressed in 1947 by US President Truman in a speech to Congress seeking aid for Greece and Turkey, the doctrine was seen by the communists as an open declaration of the Cold War. -
Molotov Plan
The system created by the Soviet Union in 1947 in order to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned to the Soviet Union. -
Marshall Plan
An American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
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Berlin Blockade
One of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
NATO Created
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II to strengthen international ties between member states—especially the United States and Europe—and to serve as a counter-balance to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. -
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Korean War
A war, also called the Korean conflict, fought in the early 1950s between the United Nations, supported by the United States, and the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea(North Korea). The war began in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. -
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Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution (1953–59) was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement and its allies against the U.S.-backed authoritarian government of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. -
Warsaw Pact Created
A military alliance of communist nations in eastern Europe. Organized in 1955 in answer to NATO, the Warsaw Pact included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. -
Sputnik
Each of a series of Soviet artificial satellites, the first of which (launched on October 4, 1957) was the first satellite to be placed in orbit. -
U2 Incident
During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. -
Bay Of Pigs
An unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government. On Apr. 17, 1961, an armed force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed in the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba. -
Berlin Wall
Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. -
Lunar Landing
A kind of lander (spacecraft) designed to conduct a moon landing. Examples of lunar landers or programs to design lunar landers include: Lunar Lander (space mission), an ESA mission to send an autonomous lander to the moon.
