Origins of Coldwar

Tehran Conference (1943)

Russia pledges to enter war against Japan after Germany is defeated

Yalta Conference (1945)

Roosevelt and Churchill agree to Stalin’s demands for Europe in exchange for Soviet pledge to fight Japan and Stalin promises free elections in Eastern Europe

Potsdam Conference (1945)

U.S. Britain and USSR meet to discuss postwar issues but tensions rise between Truman and Stalin

Non-Aggression Pact (1939)

Agreement between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany not to attack each other before WWII

September 1 1939

Nazi troops invade Poland beginning WWII and Britain and France declare war on Germany

June 1940

Nazi troops invade and defeat France within six weeks and then turn to invade Britain

June 22 1941

Germany launches invasion of the Soviet Union

December 7 1941

Japan bombs Pearl Harbor bringing the U.S. and Britain into the war against Japan

D-Day (June 6 1944)

Allied invasion of Normandy by U.S. Britain and Soviet Union against Axis powers

Moscow Conference (1944)

Churchill and Stalin make informal agreements to divide Europe into spheres of influence

Clement Attlee

Replaced Winston Churchill as British Prime Minister in 1945 after Churchill lost elections

August 6 1945

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan

August 8 1945

Soviet Union declares war on Japan

August 9 1945

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki Japan

August 15 1945

Japan surrenders ending WWII

February 9 1946

Stalin declares that contradictions of capitalism would destroy the West and communism would triumph

Containment

U.S. Cold War strategy to stop the spread of communism

George Kennan

U.S. diplomat in Moscow who sent the Long Telegram warning that USSR sought to expand communism

Long Telegram (1946)

Kennan’s message concluding that USSR was on a crusade to destroy the West