The Cold War Superpower Tensions And Rivalries (Oxford)

1. Growth and tension - the origins of the Cold War, 1943-1949

Timeline

• 1939:

  • Nazi-Soviet Pact:

    • German invasion of Poland

    • British declaration of war on Germany

• 1941:

  • Axis army initiation of Operation Barbarossa against the USSR

  • Japanese bomb US naval base at Pear Harbor, Hawaii

  • US declaration of war on Japan

  • German and Italian declarations of war on the USA

• 1942:

  • Battle of Midway

• 1943:

  • Soviet victory in Battle of Stalingrad

  • Italian surrender

  • Mussolini deposed

  • Cairo Conference

  • Teheran Conference

• 1944:

  • D-Day

  • Percentages Agreement

• 1945:

  • Yalta Conference

  • German surrender

  • US detonation of the atom bomb

  • Potsdam Conference

  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

  • Japanese surrender

• 1946:

  • Kennan’s “Long Telegram”

  • Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech

• 1947:

  • Truman Doctrine

  • Marshall Plan

• 1948

  • Czechoslovak coup

  • Berlin Blockade and airlift

• 1949:

  • Creation of NATO

  • Creation of FRG and GDR

  • Soviet detonation of atomic bomb

  • Communist victory in Chinese Civil War