Chronology: the Cold War Years
CHRONOLOGY: THE COLD WAR YEARS
November 1943 Teheran meeting between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt
July 1944Bretton Woods Conference: Creation of International Monetary Fund
and World Bank
August 1944Dumbarton Oaks Conference: Creation of United Nations
October 1944 Moscow meeting between Churchill and Stalin: Spheres of influence
plan for the Balkans
February 1945 Yalta Conference between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt
April 1945Roosevelt dies
May 1945Germany surrenders
April-June 1945 San Francisco Conference-U.N. Organization Charter
July 1945First test of A-bomb; Potsdam Conference: Truman, Churchill,
Attlee, Stalin
August 1945Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed by A-bombs; USSR enters war in Asia September 1945 Japan surrenders
March 1946Churchill's Iron Curtain speech; resumption of Greek civil war
March 1947Truman Doctrine announced
June 1947Marshall Plan announced
October 1947Creation of Cominform by Moscow
February 1948 Coup by Czech Communist Party
March 1948Partial blockade of Berlin begins
June 1948Berlin airlift begins; Yugoslavia ousted from Cominform
November 1948 Truman reelected president
April 1949North Atlantic Treaty signed in Washington
May 1949End of the Berlin blockade
August 1949USSR explodes first A-bomb
September 1949 Federal Republic of Germany created
October 1949People's Republic of China proclaimed;
German People's Republic proclaimed
February 1950 Sino-Soviet pact signed in Moscow
April 1950NSC-68 drafted
June 1950Beginning of Korean War
November 1952 First U.S. H-bomb exploded; Eisenhower elected president;
Dulles becomes secretary of state
March 1953 Death of Stalin
June 1953 East Berlin uprising Armistice in Korea
July 1953 Armistice in Korea
August 1953First Soviet H-bomb test
September 1953 Khrushchev becomes first secretary of Soviet Communist Party
September 1954 Chinese bombardment of Quemoy and Matsu
May 1955West Germany admitted to NATO; Warsaw Pact signed;
Austrian State Treaty signed;Austria neutralized
February 1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin at Twentieth Party Congress
June 1956 Poznan uprising in Poland
October 1956 Start of Hungarian uprising
November 1956USSR intervenes in Budapest
August 1957 Launching of first Soviet ICBM
October 1957 Sputnik satellite launched
February 1958 Launching of first U.S. satellite
August 1958China threatens Taiwan
January 1959 Victory of Fidel Castro in Cuba
September 1959 Khrushchev visits United States
February 1960 First French A-bomb test
May 1960American U-2 shot down over USSR; Paris summit fails
April 1961Failure of Bay of Pigs landing in Cuba
June 1961Khrushchev and Kennedy meet in Vienna
August 1961Building of the Berlin Wall
October 1961Incidents at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin; tensions increase
October 1962Cuban missile crisis
June 1963Kennedy visits Berlin, declares "Ich bin ein Berliner"
("I am a Berliner") as agesture of solidarity
October 1963Kennedy signs Limited Test Ban Treaty; USSR, United States and
UnitedKingdom outlaws tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and in space
November 1963 Kennedy assassinated; Johnson sworn into office
August 1964Tonkin Gulf Act passes Congress, escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam October 1964 Khrushchev ousted, replaced by Brezhnev and Kosygin
November 1964 China detonates first atomic bomb
March 1966Anti-Vietnam War rallies held in United States and Europe
April 1966Beginning of Chinese Cultural Revolution
January 1967United States, USSR, and 60 other nations agree to
Outer Space Treaty limiting military uses of space
June 1967China explodes first H-bomb
January 1968Prague Spring reforms begin in Czechoslovakia
January 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam
July 1968Nuclear Arms Nonproliferation Treaty signed by United States,
USSR, and 58other countries
August 1968Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
November 1968 Nixon elected President
December 1968 U.S. forces reach peak of 535,000 in Vietnam
November 1969 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begin between United States
and USSR
February 1970 Paris Peace Talks begin between United States and North Vietnam
April 1970U.S. troops invade Cambodia
April 1970Four U.S. college students killed by National Guardsmen at
Kent State University at antiwar rally
November 1971 People's Republic of China joins United Nations
February 1972 Nixon visits China
May 1972SALT I signed, freezing number of ICBMs and SLBMs in place
for 5 years
January 1973Paris Accords establish ceasefire and political settlement of Vietnam War
May 1973East and West Germany establish formal diplomatic relations
September 1973 Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende overthrown
in U.S.-backedmilitary coup
October 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states; United States and
USSR nearly drawn into conflict. Arab oil embargo against the United States thatlasts until March 1974.
August 1974Nixon resigns over Watergate; Gerald Ford sworn in as president
April 1975United States leaves Vietnam after fall of Saigon
July 1975U.S. and Soviet astronauts link up in space
July 1975United States and USSR sign Helsinki Accords, pledging
acceptance of European borders and protection for human rights
November 1976 Jimmy Carter elected president
January 1979United States and People's Republic of China establish
full diplomatic relations
June 1979SALT II agreement limiting long-range missiles and bombers
signed by Carterand Brezhnev
July 1979Sandinista forces overthrow Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua
December 1979 USSR invades Afghanistan; United States imposes sanctions
and intention toboycott Moscow Olympics
January 1980Carter Doctrine states that Persian Gulf is a vital U.S. interest
January 1981Lech Walesa leads Polish Solidarity union in illegal strike
January 1981Ronald Reagan inaugurated; U.S. hostages released from Iran
December 1981 Martial law imposed in Poland
May 1982Reagan outlines Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
to reduce ICBMsand number of strategic nuclear weapons on both sides
March 1983Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly
called "Star Wars," to develop missile defense technology
November 1983 United States begins deployment of INF Pershing II missiles
in West Germany
March 1985Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet General Secretary
March 1985Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) open in Geneva, based on START model October 1986 At Reykjavik Summit Reagan refuses Gorbachev's proposal to make
significant arms reductions if United States gives up SDI
November 1986 Secret funding of Nicaraguan contras through arms sales to
Iran becomes public
December 1987 At Washington Summit Reagan and Gorbachev agree to
eliminate INF andwork toward completing a START agreement
April 1988USSR agrees to withdraw from Afghanistan by February 1989
June 1988Gorbachev tells Communist Party leaders that elements of communist
doctrine must change
August 1988Cuba withdraws troops from Angola
November 1988 George H.W. Bush elected president
June 1989Chinese Army assaults prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square
November 1989 Berlin Wall falls; thousands of East Germans cross to Western side
February 1990 Nicaraguan Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega defeated
May-June 1990 Washington Summit between Bush and Gorbachev
October 1990 Germany reunifies into one nation
November 1990 Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe cuts size of land armies December 1990 Lech Walesa elected president of Poland
July 1991Bush and Gorbachev sign START, pledge to destroy thousands
of nuclearweapons
August 1991Coup against Gorbachev fails, but power flows to Russian
President Boris Yeltsin
September 1991 All SAC bombers, tankers, and Minuteman II ICBMs taken off alert
December 1991Soviet Union dissolves; US recognizes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine.
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