BEGINNING+OF+THE+COLD+WAR

1940s 1950s 1960s
 * 1945: February 4-11-- [|Yalta Conference] **Cold War Begins**
 * 1945: August 6 -- United States first used atomic bomb in war
 * 1945: August 8 -- Russia enters war against Japan
 * 1945: August 14 -- Japanese surrender **End of World War II**
 * 1946: March -- Winston Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" Speech
 * 1947: March -- Truman declares active role in [|Greek Civil War]
 * 1947: June -- Marshall Plan is announced
 * 1948: February -- Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia
 * 1948: June 24 -- [|Berlin Blockade] begins
 * 1949: July -- [|NATO ratified]
 * 1949: May 12 -- [|Berlin Blockade] ends
 * 1949: September -- Mao Zedong, a Communist, takes control of China
 * 1949: September -- Soviets explode first atomic bomb
 * 1950: February -- Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt
 * 1950: June -- [|Korean War] begins
 * 1951: January 12 -- [|Federal Civil Defense Administration] established
 * 1953: June 19 -- [|Rosenberg executions]
 * 1953: July -- [|Korean War] ends
 * 1954: March -- [|KGB] established
 * 1954 -- CIA helps overthrow unfriendly regimes in Iran and Guatemala
 * 1954: July -- [|Vietnam] split at 17th parallel
 * 1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed
 * 1956: October - November -- Rebellion put down in Communist Hungary. Egypt took control of Suez Canal; U.S. refused to help take it back
 * 1957: October 4 -- [|Sputnik] launched into orbit
 * 1958: November -- Khrushchev demands withdrawal of troops from [|Berlin]
 * 1959: January -- Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro
 * 1959: September -- Khrushchev visits United States; denied access to [|Disneyland]
 * 1960: May -- Soviet Union reveals that U.S. spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory
 * 1960: November -- John F. Kennedy elected President
 * 1961: April -- [|Bay of Pigs invasion]
 * 1961: July -- Kennedy requests 25% spending increase for military
 * 1961: August 13 -- [|Berlin border closed]
 * 1961: August 17 -- Construction of [|Berlin Wall] begins
 * 1962: -- U.S. involvement in [|Vietnam increased]
 * 1962: October -- [|Cuban Missile Crisis]
 * 1963: July -- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified
 * 1963: November -- President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas
 * 1964: August -- Gulf of Tonkin incident
 * 1965: April -- U.S. Marines sent to Dominican Republic to fight Communism
 * 1965: July -- Announcement of dispatching of 150,000 U.S. troops to [|Vietnam]
 * 1968: January -- North Korea captured U.S.S. //Pueblo//
 * 1968: August -- Soviet troops crush Czechoslovakian revolt
 * 1969: July 20 -- [|Apollo 11] lands on the moon