Cold War Timeline

Cold War Timeline
Date	Summary	Detailed Information
February 4th – 11th 1945	Yalta Conference	Meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin to decide what would happen at the end of the war. Topics discussed included – Partitioning of Germany Fate of Poland The United Nations German reparations
May 8th 1945	V E Day	Victory in Europe as Germany surrenders to the Russian army.
July 17th – August 2nd 1945	Potsdam Conference	The Potsdam Conference formally divided Germany and Austria into four zones. It was also agreed that the German capital Berlin would be divided into four zones. The Russian Polish border was determined and Korea was to be divided into Soviet and American zones.
August 6th 1945	Hiroshima	The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima
August 8th 1945	Nagasaki	The United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
August 14th 1945	V J Day	The Japanese surrendered bringing World War Two to an end.
September 2nd 1945	Vietnam Independence	Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam an independent republic.
March 5th 1946	Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech	Churchill delivers his ‘Sinews of Peace’ speech which contain the famous phrase “..an iron curtain has descended on Europe”
March 12th 1947	Truman Doctrine	President Truman promised to help any country facing a Communist takeover
June 5th 1947	Marshall Plan	This was a programme of economic aid offered by the United States to any European country. The plan was rejected outright by Stalin and any Eastern Bloc country considering accepting aid was reprimanded severely. Consequently the aid was only given to Western European Countries.
September 1947	Cominform	The USSR set up Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) which was the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties responsible for the creation of the Eastern bloc.
June 1948	Formation of West Germany	The French, USA and UK partitions of Germany were merged to form West Germany
June 24th 1948	Berlin Blockade	Russia’s response to the merger of the French, USA and UK partitions of Berlin was to cut all road and rail links to that sector. This meant that those living in Western Berlin had no access to food supplies and faced starvation. Food was brought to Western Berliners by US and UK airplanes, an exercise known as the Berlin Airlift.
May 1949	End of Berlin Blockade	Russia ended the blockade of Berlin.
April 4th 1949	NATO formed	The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formed with member states Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States
June 25th 1950	Korean War	The Korean war began when North Korea invaded South Korea.
March 5th 1953	Death of Stalin	Joseph Stalin died at the age of 74. He was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev.
July 27th 1953	Korean War	The Korean war ended. North Korea remained affiliated with Russia while South Korea was affiliated with the USA.
Summer 1954	Geneva Accords	This set of documents ended the French war with the Vietminh and divided Vietnam into North and South states. The communist leader of North Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh while the US friendly south was led by Ngo Dinh Diem.
May 14th 1955	Warsaw Pact	The Warsaw Pact was formed with member states East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union.
October 23rd 1956	Hungarian Revolution	This began as a Hungarian protest against Communist rule in Budapest. It quickly gathered momentum and on 24th October Soviet tanks entered Budapest. The tanks withdrew on 28th October and a new government was formed which quickly moved to introduce democracy, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. The Soviet tanks returned on 4th November encircling Budapest. The Prime Minister Imre Nagy made a World broadcast that Hungary was under attack from the Soviet Union and calling for aid. Hungary fell to Russia on 10th November 1956.
October 30th 1956	Suez Crisis	Following military bombardment by Israeli forces, a joint British and French force invaded Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal which had been nationalised by the Egyptian leader Nasser. The attack was heavily criticised by World leaders, especially America because Russia had offered support to Egypt. The British and French were forced to withdraw and a UN peace keeping force was sent to establish order.
November 1st 1957	Space Race	USSR Sputnik II carried Laika the dog, the first living creature to go into space.
1960	Paris East/West talks	Talks between Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower concerning the fate of Germany broke down when a USA U2 spy plane was shot down over Russian airspace.
April 12th 1961	Space Race	Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyvich Gagarin became the first human being in space.
April 17th 1961	Bay of Pigs Invasion	A force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, aided by the US government attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. The attempt failed.
August 13th 1961	Berlin Wall	Berlin wall built and borders sealed between East and West Germany.
October 14th 1962	Cuban Missile Crisis	A US spy plane reported sighting the construction of a Soviet nuclear missile base in Cuba. President Kennedy set up a naval blockade and demanded the removal of the missiles. War was averted when the Russians agreed on 28th October to remove the weapons. The United States agreed not to invade Cuba.
November 22nd 1963	JFK Assassination	JF Kennedy was assassinated while on a visit to Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder but there has always been speculation that he was not a lone killer and that there may have been communist or CIA complicity.
October 15th 1964	USSR	Nikita Krushchev removed from office. He was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
July 1965	Vietnam War	150,000 US troops sent to Vietnam.
August 20th 1968	Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia	Warsaw Pact forces entered Czechoslovakia in a bid to stop the reforms known as ‘Prague Spring’ instigated by Alexander Dubcek. When he refused to halt his programme of reforms Dubcek was arrested.
December 21st 1968	Space Race	US launched Apollo 8 – first manned orbit of the Moon.
20th July 1969	Space Race	US Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and Neil Armstrong became the first man on the Moon.
April 30th 1970	Vietnam War	President Richard Nixon ordered US troops to go to Cambodia.
September 3rd 1971	Four Power Agreement Berlin	The Four Power Agreement made between Russia, USA, Britain and France reconfirmed the rights and responsibilities of those countries with regard to Berlin.
May 26th 1972	SALT	Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed between the US and USSR.
August 15th 1973	Vietnam	The Paris Peace Accords ended American involvement in Vietnam.
April 17th 1975	Cambodia Killing fields	The Khmer Rouge attacked and took control of Cambodia. Any supporters of the former regime, anyone with links or supposed links to foreign governments as well as many intellectuals and professionals were executed in a genocide that became known as the ‘killing fields’.
April 30th 1975	Vietnam	North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese led to the whole country becoming Communist
July 1975	Apollo-Soyuz Test Project	Joint space venture between USA and USSR heralded as an end to the ‘Space Race’
January 20th 1977	Carter President	Jimmy Carter became the 39th President of the United States
November 4th 1979	Iranian hostage crisis	A group of Iranian students and militants stormed the American embassy and took 53 Americans hostage to show their support for the Iranian Revolution.
December 24th 1979	Afghanistan	Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan
July 1980	Olympic Boycott by USA	A number of countries including the USA boycotted the summer Olympics held in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Other countries including Great Britain participated under the Olympic flag rather than their national flag
December 13th 1980	Poland	Martial law was declared to crush the Solidarity movement
January 20th 1981	Iranian hostage crisis ended	The Iranian hostage crisis ended 444 days after it began
June 1982	START	During a summit in Geneva Reagan proposed Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
July 1984	Olympic boycott by Russia	Russia and 13 allied countries boycotted the summer Olympics held in Los Angeles in retaliation for the US boycott of 1980.
March 11th 1985	Govbachov leader of USSR	Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union
April 26th 1986	Chernobyl Disaster	An explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine  remains the worst nuclear disaster in history
June 1987	Glasnost and Perestroika	Mikhail Gorbachev announced his intention to follow a policy of glasnost – openness, transparency and freedom of speech; and perestroika – restructuring of government and economy. He also advocated free elections and ending the arms race.
February 15th 1989	Afghanistan	The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan
June 4th 1989	Tiananmen Square	Anti Communist protests in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China were crushed by the government. The death count is unknown.
August 1989	Poland	Tadeusz Mazowiecki elected leader of the Polish government – the first eastern bloc country to become a democracy
October 23rd 1989	Hungary	Hungary proclaimed itself a republic
November 9th 1989	Fall of the Berlin Wall	The Berlin wall was torn down
November 17th – December 29th 1989	Velvet Revolution	The Velvet Revolution, also known as the Gentle Revolution, was a series of peaceful protests in Czechoslovakia that led to the overthrow of the Communist government.
December 2nd, 3rd 1989	Malta Summit	This meeting between Mikhail Gorbachov and George H W Bush reversed much of the provisions of the Yalta Conference 1945. It is seen by some as the beginning of the end of the cold war.
December 16th – 25th 1989	Romanian Revolution	Riots broke out which culminated in the overthrow and execution of the leader Ceauşescu and his wife.
October 3rd 1990	German reunification	East and West Germany were reunited as one country.
1st July 1991	End of Warsaw Pact	The Warsaw Pact which allied Communist countries was ended
31st July 1991	START	The Strategic Arms Reduction treaty was signed between Russia and the USA
25th December 1991	Gorbachev resigned	Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The hammer and sickle flag on the Kremlin was lowered
26th December 1991	End of the Soviet Union	Russia formally recognised the end of the Soviet Union