Cold War Timeline

1945

February - Yalta Conference

July - Potsdam Conference

August - Atomic Bombs dropped On Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1946

March - ‘Iron Curtain’ speech by Churchill

1947

March - Truman Doctrine

June - Marshall Plan introduced

1948

June - Beginning of Berlin Blockade

1949

May - Berlin Blockade ends/ West Germany set up

1950

June - Beginning of Korean War

1953

July - Korean War ends

1955

May - Warsaw Pact set up

1956

February - Krushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’

October-November - Hungarian uprising

1959

January - Castro takes over Cuba

1961

April - Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba

August - Building of Berlin Wall

1962

October - Cuban Missile Crisis

1964

August - Gulf of Tonkin Incident Vietnam

1965

March - Johnson sends troops to Vietnam

1968

January - Tet Offensive in Vietnam

August - Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

November - Brezhnev Doctrine

1973

January - Ceasefire in Vietnam between USA and North Korea

1979

December - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

1980

September - Iraq invades Iran

1983

March - Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ Speech

1985

March - Gorbachev comes to power

1988

August - Iran/Iraq war ends

1989

February - Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda begins under Osama bin Laden

June onwards - Communism collapses In Eastern Europe

1990

August - Iraq invades Kuwait

1991

July - Warsaw Pact dissolved

December - Gorbachev resigns and USSR collapses

1993

February - First Al-Qaeda attack on New York’s World Trade Center

1998

February - Al-Qaeda declaration of war on USA and its allies

2000

October - USS Cole attack by Al-Qaeda off coast of Yemen

2001

September - 9/11 attacks in USA, President Bush declares ‘war on terror’

October - Afghanistan invaded by US and British forces - Operation Enduring Freedom

2002

January - President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ Speech

June - Bush Doctrine introduced

October - Bali Bombing

2003

March - invasion of Iraq by USA and UK troops

December - capture of Saddam Hussein