Knowlege Boxes (World History--Cold War Major events)

1917 - Communist Revolution in Russia The Russian Revolution is the collective term for the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar), the Tsar was deposed and replaced by a Provisional government. In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.

1945 - End of World War II The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender took place in late April and early May 1945.

1945 - Germany Splits As a consequence of Germany's defeat in World War II and the onset of the Cold War, the country was split between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. Two states emerged; West Germany was a parliamentary democracy, a NATO member, a founding member of what since became the European Union and one of the world's largest economies, while East Germany was a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship allied with the Soviet Union, widely considered to be a Soviet satellite state. Germany would not be reunited until 1990, following the collapse of the East German communist regime.

1949 - Communists Control China The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party), the governing party of the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China (CPC).The war began in April 1927, amidst the Northern Expedition. The war represented an ideological split between the Western-supported Nationalist KMT, and the Soviet-supported Communist CPC. In the People's Republic of China, the war is more commonly known as the "War of Liberation". The civil war carried on intermittently until the Second Sino-Japanese War interrupted it, resulting in the two parties forming a Second United Front. Japan's campaign was defeated in 1945, marking the end of World War II, and China's full-scale civil war resumed in 1946. After a further four years, 1950 saw a cessation of major military hostilities—with the newly founded People's Republic of China controlling mainland China (including Hainan Island), and the Republic of China's jurisdiction being restricted to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying Fujianese islands. To this day, since no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, there is controversy as to whether the Civil War has legally ended.Today, the two sides of the Taiwan strait have close economic ties

1949 - Soviets Test Nuclear Technology The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb began during World War II in the Soviet Union. The program was started after Stalin learned of the American efforts to develop an Atomic bomb. The scientific research was directed by noted Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov. The USSR tested its first nuclear weapon in Aug. 1949

1954 - Communists Invade Vietnam The Vietnam War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1, 1955, to April 30, 1975 when Saigon fell. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations.

1955 - Austrian State Treaty The Austrian State Treaty or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on May 15, 1955, in Vienna at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union) and the Austrian government. It officially came into force on July 27, 1955.

1957 - Sputnik Satellite Launched The Sputnik program, which is translated as 'companion') was a series of robotic spacecraft missions launched by the Soviet Union. The first of these, Sputnik 1, launched the first human-made object to orbit the Earth. That launch took place on October 4, 1957 as part of the International Geophysical Year and demonstrated the viability of using artificial satellites to explore the upper atmosphere. The Russian word sputnik literally means "co-traveler", "traveling companion" or "satellite",[note 1] and its R-7 launch vehicle was designed initially to carry nuclear warheads.

1959 - Castro Controls Cuba Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban politician and former president. One of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba and the president of Council of Ministers of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He currently serves as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, a position he has held since its inception in 1965.

1960: East-West summit in tatters after spy plane row The much-heralded Big Four summit in Paris has failed before it even started. It follows three days of bitter recrimination over a US spy plane shot down two weeks ago by the Russians. Any hope of East-West rapprochement was doomed from the start as heads of state - President Eisenhower, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, General de Gaulle and Harold Macmillan - never got beyond preliminary procedural meetings.

1960 - Gary Powers is Captured During Summit The U2 spy plane was shot down on 1 May by a Russian missile after it lost height owing to engine trouble. The civilian pilot, Gary Powers, was able to bale out of the aircraft and was arrested in Sverdlovsk in the USSR.

1960 - John F. Kennedy is Elected President John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many observers believed that Kennedy's poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. Issues, however, also played a role in the election, and the nation's foreign policy was a major bone of contention between Kennedy and Nixon.

1961 - Berlin Wall is Erected The Berlin Wall  was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting August 13, 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc officially claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a Socialist State in East Germany. However, in practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

1961 - Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion , was an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days.

1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis (known as The October Crisis in Cuba) was a confrontation between the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War. In September 1962, the Cuban and Soviet governments began to surreptitiously build bases in Cuba for a number of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. This action followed the 1958 deployment of Thor IRBMs in the UK and Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in 1961; more than 100 U.S.-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads. On October 14, 1962, a United States U-2 photoreconnaissance plane captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.

1963 - Hotline Agreement The 1963 “Hotline Agreement” was the first bilateral agreement of the Cold War era between the United States and the Soviet Union, and became the first of a series of growing “confidence building measures” designed to decrease tensions and eliminate the kinds of misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to an accidental nuclear war. It was symbolically important, because for the first time, both sides acknowledged that with the advent of nuclear weapons and intercontinental delivery systems, they needed better communication and cooperation to address an entirely new world of different and unprecedented diplomacy and military strategies. Nuclear weapons had changed both disciplines forever in new and unforeseen ways.

1963 - Detente  Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War.

1963 - Kennedy is Assassinated The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963–1964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979, and other government investigations concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was murdered by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. This conclusion was initially met with support among the American public; however, polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 concluded approximately 80% of the American public have held beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired, that there was a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President, and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed.Later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences,have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

1964 - Lyndon B. Johnson Becomes President Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. He served in all four federal elected offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President and President.

1969 - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union - the Cold War superpowers - on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. A subsequent treaty was START.

1972 - Nixon Goes to China U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, who at that time considered the U.S. one of its staunchest foes. The visit has become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician.

1988 - Gorbachev Becomes Premier of Soviet Union Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev  is the former seventh and last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991. He was the only Soviet leader to have been born after the October Revolution of 1917. In 1989, he became the first and only Soviet leader to visit China since the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s

1989 - Berlin Wall Collapses In 1989, a radical series of Eastern Bloc political changes occurred, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on November 9, 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

1991 - Communism in Russia Dies Many things led to the fall of communism in Russia. An oppressed people will always yearn to breathe free. Any government that systematically oppresses its citizens into submission and obedience will eventually see a backlash against the ruling regime. This is what the leaders in the U.S.S.R. faced that culminated into them voting their Communist government out of existence in 1991.