The Cold War (1945 - 1991)

Timeline created by joshstovall
In History
  • The Yalta Conference

    The Yalta Conference
    World leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), Winston Churchill (Great Britain and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union), gathered at Yalta in Crimea to plan for the post war world order and the final defeat of Nazi Germany. They agreed on a declaration to respect democracy in Europe, and finalized plans to divide Germany into several different zones of occupation.
  • Hiroshima

    American B-29 Subperfortress bomber, Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. President Truman, announced that the bomb was “more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date”. The devastation shocked the world and led the beginning of the nuclear age. Official Japanese figures at the time estimated the death toll at 118,661 civilians.
  • The Marshall Plan

    Secretary of State, George Marshall, proposes the Marshall Plan during a speech to the graduating class of Harvard University. The plan called for a $13 billion foreign aid package which was designed to rebuild Europe after World War II. It boosted European industrialization, stimulated the U.S. economy by establishing a market for American goods, and institutionalized U.S. foreign aid programs.
  • NATO Formed

    NATO Formed
    In response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada, and several other European nations formed The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an "intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty". It was essentially an agreement of mutual defense between the nations. NATO was the first alliance that the US joined outside of the Western Hemisphere.
  • Warsaw Pact Formed

    Warsaw Pact Formed
    In response to NATO, the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria signed The Warsaw Pact. It called for the members to come to the defense one another if attacked by an outside force. The pact “emphasized non-interference in the internal affairs” and structured itself around cooperative decisions, however the Soviet Union ultimately controlled the majority of the Pact’s actions.
  • Soviet Atomic Bomb

    Soviet Atomic Bomb
    At a secluded test site in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully tests its first atomic bomb, "First Lightning." The explosion destroyed all of the surrounding structures built to test the strength. Just a few days later, a U.S. spy plane picked up radioactivity from the explosion. President Truman soon announced that the Soviets had the bomb, which created fear among the American people.
  • Rise of Communism in China

    Rise of Communism in China
    Chinese Communist leader, Mao Zedong, announced the formation of the People’s Republic of China, concluding the ongoing civil war between the Communist and the Nationalist. This also completed the process of disorder in the Chinese government, which rooted from the Chinese Revolution of 1911. This event influenced the United States to “suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades”.
  • Soviet and Chinese Form Alliance

    Soviet and Chinese Form Alliance
    Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, and Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, leading the two largest communist nations in the world, sign a mutual defense treaty. The treaty called for the USSR to provide $300 million to the PRC, and also that the USSR return the previously seized cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria to China. Zhou En-lai, a PRC leader, publically announced that “the linking of the two communist nations created a force that was impossible to defeat."
  • North Korea Attacks South Korea

    North Korea Attacks South Korea
    75,000 North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th parallel into the Republic of Korea to the south. This was the first official military act of the Cold War. In just under a week, America had entered the battle on South Korea’s behalf. In total, the Korean War cost the lives of 5 million soldiers and civilians. To this day, Korea remains divided.
  • America's Hydrogen Bomb

    America's Hydrogen Bomb
    The United States tests the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The hydrogen bomb was estimated to be hundreds of times stronger than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was a great method of defense for the United States, however it brought fear to many other countries.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower Elected

    Dwight D. Eisenhower Elected
    Popular Republican World War II general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson by a landslide in the American presidential election. This was an important event in history as Eisenhower would later reach a truce with Korea and "ease the tensions of the Cold War".
  • Death of Stalin

    Death of Stalin
    Soviet leader Josef Stalin died of a massive heart attack in Moscow, ending his 30-year reign on power in the Soviet Union. Stalin's death evoked a power struggle for the position he held between the eight senior members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev defeated his potential rivals in the Presidium, and became the general secretary of the committee.
  • Treaty of Rome

    Treaty of Rome
    The Treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Essentially, the treaty created the European Economic Community, a common market and customs union. It also established the European Atomic Energy Community, which was dedicated to innovating peaceful atomic energy.
  • Creation of NASA

    Creation of NASA
    In response to Sputnik I, congress passed legislation that established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and thus began the US-Soviet "space race". NASA was crafted from a group previously known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The NACA existed primarily for defense, whereas NASA was created to be a "non-military space agency".
  • The Strategic Arms Reduction Talk

    The Strategic Arms Reduction Talk
    The Strategic Arms Reduction Talk is signed by George W. Bush (USA) and Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR), which callded for the disarmament of both parties' nuclear weapons. This offically ended the Cold War, and broke up the Soviet Union into independent republics.