The NATO Double-Track Decision is

approved, enabling the US to

The Communists take power in
Czechoslovakia
The Soviet blockade of West
Berlin begins on June 24. Cut off
from the outside world,
provisions are delivered to the
The Allies agree in Potsdam to isolated city by the Americans in
the fundamental conditions of the Berlin Air Bridge action. This
the occupation of Germany. is the first major Berlin crisis
American nuclear bombs during the Cold War. On May
destroy Hiroshima and 12, 1949, Stalin lifts the
Nagasaki. blockade.
The Korean War: After North
Korea attacks South Korea, UN
troops led by the United
States invade the country.
China and the Soviet Union
back North Korea. The cease-
fire leaves the two countries
with the pre-war status quo.
On June 17, 1953, a
workers' uprising in East
Germany is crushed by
Russian tanks.
The Hungarian uprising takes place,
starting on Oct. 20, but it is
ultimately crushed by the Russians
From Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, the Suez
crisis takes place. After Egypt
attempts to nationalize the Suez
Canal, Israel, France and Great
Britain occupy the Canal Zone and
bomb Egyptian air fields. Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev threatens
London and Paris with nuclear war.
The Cuba crisis: After
the Soviets position
nuclear war heads in
Cuba, the United
States threatens war.
The world is on the
verge of nuclear war
for days
station 572 "Pershing II" nuclear
war heads in Western Europe if the
negotiations with the Soviets over
the dismantling of SS-20 midrange
Troops from the missiles fail. The deployment
Warsaw Pact, begins in 1983.
an organization
of communist
states in Central 1980: Following the Soviet invasion
and Eastern
of Afghanistan in 1979, the US
Europe, stamp imposes sanctions on the Russians
out the Prague and boycotts the Moscow Olympic
Spring uprising. Games.

1945 1948 1950-1953 1953 1956 1962 1968 1979-1980

1947 1949 1952 1955 1961 1965 1969-1970 1991

The Truman Doctrine: The US
offers assistance to countries
threatened by communism -
especially Greece and Turkey.
US Secretary of State George C.
Marshall announces a massive
aid program for the
reconstruction of World War II-
torn Europe that will become
known as the Marshall Plan.
On April 4, the NATO Treaty is signed in Soviet leader Joseph Stalin The Federal Republic of The construction of The first US combat Negotiations between the In 1989 The Berlin
Washington offers to hold negotiations on Germany joins NATO and forms the Berlin Wall begins forces land in South UN and the Soviet Union Wall falls on
the reunification of Germany on the Bundeswehr, the first on August 13. Vietnam. More than begin on the reduction of
On May 23, the Federal Republic of November 9
the condition that a united Germany army to exist after 2 million people will nuclear weapons. The talks
Germany is established. Not long later, on Germany remain neutral. With Hitler's fall. end with several treaties in The Warsaw Pact
perish during the
Oct. 7, the communist German Democratic the support of the West 1979, but the arms race is dissolved.
Vietnam War --
Republic (GDR) is founded German parliament, the continues unabated. Gorbachev resigns
mostly civilians. The
Western allied powers reject US withdraws its and the Soviet
On August 29, the Soviets detonate their
the offer. troops in 1973. Two Union disappears
first atomic bomb
years later the 1970: The Ostpolitik, a policy from the map.
After winning the country's civil war, the communist north of rapprochement with the
Communist Party under Mao Zedong conquers the Eastern bloc championed by
establish the People's Republic of China. southern part of the German Chancellor Willy
country. Brandt, begins. His policy of
"change through
conciliation" The Germans
and Russians agree to a
treaty that renounces the use
of force