Timeline
- 1940s
- 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
- 1970: April -- President Nixon extends Vietnam War to Cambodia
- 1972: July -- SALT I signed
- 1973: January -- Cease fire in Vietnam between North Vietnam and United States
- 1973: September -- United States helps overthrow Chile government
- 1973: October -- Egypt and Syria attack Israel; Egypt requests Soviet aid
- 1974: August -- President Nixon resigns
- 1975: April 17 -- North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam
- 1979: July -- SALT II signed
- 1979: November -- Shah of Iran overthrown; Iranian Hostage Crisis
- 1983: -- President Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative
- 1983: October -- U.S. troops overthrow regime in Grenada
- 1985: -- Iran-Contra Affair (arms sold to Iran, profits used to support contras in Nicaragua)
- 1985: -- Mikhail Gorbachev ascends to power in Soviet Union
- 1986: -- Gorbachev ends economic aid to Soviet satellites
- 1986: October -- Reagan and Gorbachev resolve to remove all intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe
- 1986: November -- Iran-Contra Affair revealed to public
- 1987: October -- Reagan and Gorbachev agree to remove all medium and short-range nuclear missiles by signing treaty
- 1989: January -- Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan
- 1989: June -- China puts down protests for democracy; Poland becomes independent
- 1989: September -- Hungary becomes independent
- 1989: November -- Berlin Wall falls
- 1989: December -- Communist governments fall in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania; Soviet empire ends
- 1990: March -- Lithuania becomes independent
- 1990: May 29 -- Boris Yeltsin elected to presidency of Russia
- 1990: October 3 -- Germany reunited
- 1991: April -- Warsaw Pact ends
- 1991: August -- End of Soviet Union Cold War Ends
- 1945: February 4-11-- Yalta Conference Cold War Begins