Sample Cold War Chronology

Selected Cold War Chronology

Year	Location	Event
September 1939	Poland	German, and then the Russian, invasion of Poland
February 1945	Crimea	Yalta conference
April 1945	USA	Death of FDR Harry Truman President, 1945-1952, (end of Lend/Lease; Molotov incident; remark in Senate abotu backing either side in war)
May 1945		Victory in Europe (VE) Day
1945	July-August 1945	At the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945 leaders of the victorious allied powers decided upon the division of Germany. That decision meant that Germany would become the center of East-West rivalry in the following years. Critics of the conference proceedings have long argued that the absence of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill allowed Stalin to dominate the proceedings and ensure that communist regimes became firmly entrenched in Eastern Europe.
First Un Meetin in San Francisoo
September 1945		Victory in Japan (VJ) Day
1947	Central and Eastern Europe	Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe (Czech opted out)
1947	USA	Truman Doctrine. President Truman announced U.S. aid to Turkey and Greece independence and other coutnries threatened by communism
1947	Rio Pact	U.S. influences most Latin American countries to ban communist parties and accept a collective security agreement
1948		Berlin Airlift
1948		Cominforn and Tito problem
1948	OAS	Organization of American States follows Rio Pact
1949	Soviet Union	Exploded their first atomic bomb
1949		Communist China
1949	Germany	Federal Republic of West Germany created
1950	NATO	North Atlantic Treaty Organization (U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Italy, and Portugal) created (Greece and Turkey in 1952)
1950	NSC	NCS-68, a secret planning document
Rosenberg spy case, alger hiss, mcarthyism
1950	USA	Central Intelligence Agency created
1950-1953	Korean War	North Korea attacks South Korea (UN intervention when Russia missing; China)
1951	Europe	European Coal and Steel Authority merged mines and steel mills in France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries
1953	Soviet Union	Stalin’s Death (struggle for power)
1953	Soviet Union	Exploded their hydrogen bomb (nine months after the U.S. did)
1953		Unrest in East Germany
1953-1961	USA	Dwight D. Eisenhower President (Cento, Baghdad pact, non-aligned movement, Nassar)
1954	Vietnam	Vietminh defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, US later started protecting S. Vietnam after Paris Accords

1955	Warsaw Pact	Alliance of Eastern European client states
1956		Secret Speech, crimes of the Stalin era, cult of personality
1956	Poland
1956	Hungary	Revolted against Soviet domination (U.S. would not interfere)
1956	USA	Retaliated against allies (British, French, and Israelis) invading Egypt in Suez Crisis; Aswan Dam
1956-1964	Soviet Union	Nikita S. Khrushchev
1957	Europe	France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries signed the Treaties of Rome and formed the European Economic Commision (EEC)
		Sputnik
1958-1969	France	General de Gaulle wanted Europe to be independent of the bi-polar powers of U.S. and Soviet domination, ousted NATO from France, attacked the international monetary system, demanding gold for payments
1960		National Liberation Movements and Domino theory
1959	Cuba	Fidel Castro came to power after the Cuban Revolution
1960	Vietnam	National Liberation Front (FLN in French) started guerrilla operations in S. Vietnam jungles
1961	Cuba	Cuban refugees formed by CIA overtaken at the Bay of Pigs
1961	Soviet Union	Berlin Wall built to keep people in
1961-1963	USA	John F. Kennedy President
1962	Cuba/USA	Cuban Missile Crisis with missile bases in Cuba
1963-1969	USA	Lyndon B. Johnson President
1963		Test Ban Treaty
1964	USA	Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Martin Luther King
1967		Seven Day War between Israel and Arabs
1968	Vietnam	The FLN achieved great successes and infiltrated the American Embassy, bringing the war almost to a close in the Tet Offensive
1968		Prague Spring; Communism with a human Face
1968	USA	Martin Luther King assassinated
1969-1974	USA	Richard M. Nixon President
1972	China/USA	President Nixon visits China
1972	Soviet Union/USA	President Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev come to terms after 3 yrs of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I)
1973	Vietnam	Withdrawal of U.S. troops
1973		Arab-Israel Conflict again (Russia vs US)
1973	OPEC	Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries created to control costs
1974		Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia (1969), Sudan, Congo
1975	Vietnam	The war was lost when North Vietnamese entered Saigon
1975	Europe	European Security Conference in Helsinki, Finland, European countries and the U.S. promised to honor each others borders
1977-1981	USA	Jimmy Carter President
1979	Soviet Union/USA	President Carter and Soviets come to terms on the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II)
1979	Soviet Union / Afghanistan	Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when Afghans held the pro-soviet governments in contempt
1981-1987	USA	Ronald Reagan President
1985	Soviet Union	Mikhail Gorbachev became President
1986	Soviet Union / USA	Intermediate nuclear forces (INF treaty) held to eliminate ground based missiles
1987	Soviet Union / USA	Reagan-Gorbachev summit held to ensure INF weapons destroyed
1987-1991	USA	George Bush President
1987-1991	USA	Wall Street crash
1989	Soviet Union	Berlin Wall falls
1991	Soviet Union	Collapse (December 25^th) into 15 separate and independent countries
1991	Soviet Union	Warsaw Pact and Comecon dissolved, Soviet Union became the "Commonwealth of Independent States"
1991	Iraq/Kuwait	President Bush/Saddam Hussein in the Persion Gulf War
1991	European Union	Voted to have a single European currency by the year 2000 to strengthen the European economy
1991-1996	Bosnia	Civil war between Serbians, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims
1991-1999	USA	Bill Clinton President
1992	Soviet Union / USA	Bush and Boris Yeltsin formally end the Cold War
1993	EEC	Became the European Union w/new members Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Spain and Portugal
1998	European Union	7 European nations lifted passport examination between their borders