Cold War

Events (39)

• 1945

  4/5 — Cold War: Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito signs an agreement with the Soviet Union to allow "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory".

• 1945

  8/25 — Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

• 1945

  9/5 — Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.

• 1945

  9/8 — Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.

• 1946

  3/28 — Cold War: The United States Department of State releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.

• 1947

  4/16 — Bernard Baruch first applies the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

• 1947

  7/26 — Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

• 1947

  12/30 — Cold War: King Michael I of Romania is forced to abdicate by the Soviet Union-backed Communist government of Romania.

• 1950

  3/1 — Cold War: Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by disclosing top secret atomic bomb data.

• 1950

  3/7 — Cold War: The Soviet Union issues a statement denying that Klaus Fuchs served as a Soviet spy.

• 1950

  7/20 — Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.

• 1950

  12/9 — Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

• 1953

  8/19 — Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

• 1953

  10/30 — Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

• 1955

  4/24 — The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.

• 1955

  5/9 — Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.

• 1955

  5/14 — Cold War: Eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

• 1957

  11/7 — Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.

• 1959

  12/1 — Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

• 1960

  5/1 — Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.

• 1960

  5/7 — Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

• 1960

  10/12 — Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe.

• 1960

  10/19 — Cold War: The United States government imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba.

• 1961

  6/23 — Cold War: The Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.

• 1962

  1/11 — Cold War: While tied to its pier in Polyarny, the Soviet submarine B-37 is destroyed when fire breaks out in its torpedo compartment.

• 1969

  11/15 — Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.

• 1973

  2/22 — Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.

• 1976

  9/6 — Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.

• 1981

  11/30 — Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe. (The meetings end inconclusively on December 17.)

• 1983

  7/7 — Cold War: Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

• 1983

  9/1 — Cold War: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace, killing all 269 on board, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.

• 1985

  11/19 — Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

• 1986

  10/11 — Cold War: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe.

• 1987

  6/12 — Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

• 1989

  11/28 — Cold War: Velvet Revolution: In the face of protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces it will give up its monopoly on political power.

• 1989

  12/1 — Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.

• 1989

  12/3 — Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union may be coming to an end.

• 1989

  12/3 — Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union may be coming to an end.

• 1990

  10/15 — Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.