APUSH - Cold War Timeline

Harry Truman (D) 1945-1952

1945 – WWII ends with Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan

1945 – The United Nations is created

1946 – W. Churchill claimed an Iron Curtain has descended upon Europe

1947 –*Truman Doctrine aid is aimed at saving Greece & Turkey

1948 – U.S.S.R. cuts off supply route to W. Berlin and U.S. responds with an Airlift

1948 –*Marshall Plan aid will rebuild Western Europe

1949 – U.S.S.R. detonated their first atomic bomb

1949 – Civil War in China turns most populous country into a Communist Nation

1949 –*The NATO Alliance was created to offset Soviet influence in Eastern Europe

1950 –*Korean War Conflict begins; as a result United Nations police action begins to defend S. Korea

1950 – (R) Sen. McCarthy claims communists have infested the government, starts 2nd Red Scare

1951 – Rosenbergs are tried and sentenced for providing nuclear secrets to the Soviets

1952 – The first hydrogen bomb was detonated by the U.S.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 1952-1960

1953 – Stalin Dies

1953 – Korean Conflict ends in a armistice at the 38th parallel

1954 –*SEATO Alliance forms to protect South Asia

1955 – Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD Plan introduced by John Foster Dulles

1955 – S.U. creates Warsaw Pact to offset NATO

1956 – New Soviet Premier Krushchev proposed idea of “peaceful coexistence”

1957 – Sputnik launches the U.S. & Soviets into a space race

1957 –*Eisenhower Doctrine is offered to Middle Eastern countries

1959 – Communist dictator Fidel Castro (Cuba), takes power and seizes all US assets and private property

1960 – Francis Gary U.S. pilot is shot down in his U-2 spy plane over U.S.S.R.

John F. Kennedy (D) 1960-1963

1961 – Soviets begin constructing Berlin Wall

1961 –Bay of Pigs invasion by 1500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles in attempt to topple Castro (Failure)

1962 – U.S. President JFK and Soviet Premier Khrushchev involve world in the Cuban Missile crisis

1963 – JFK is assassinated in Dallas, TX

Lyndon B. Johnson (D) 1963-1968 (Vietnam covered in Vietnam Unit)

1964 – U.S. passes resolution to increase troops in Vietnam

1968 – U.S. involvement in Vietnam increases; popular opinion decreases

Richard M. Nixon (R) 1968-1974

1969 – NASA achieves moon landing

1972 – Nixon recognizes Communist China & visits the Great Wall of China

1972 – First Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1)

1973 – U.S. pulls out of Vietnam; 1975 Saigon falls