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US on a Global Stage 1945-1990

Cold War Webquest

Watch the video below before examining the timeline.

Directions for reading the timeline

cold_war_timeline_guiding_questions.pdf
File Size: 53 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

The Cold War was a war between the US and the USSR, but it involved many different countries all around the world. Read through the timeline below and respond to the questions on the document provided.
  • If you already know the answer to something, answer the questions related to it and seek out NEW information.
  • Almost all pictures have captions on them with information. Click on them to see up close and read captions. 
  • Buttons provide links to key primary sources and other articles.

1940

1945: July -- Potsdam Conference
1945: August 6 -- Nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima
1945: August 9 -- Nuclear bomb is dropped on Nagasaki
1945: August 14 -- Japanese Surrender in WWII
1946: March -- Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" Speech
1947: March -- Truman declares role in Greek Civil War establishing the "Truman Doctrine"
1947: June -- Marshall Plan is announced
1948: February -- Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia
1948: June 24 -- Berlin Blockade begins
1948: July -- NATO ratified
1949: May 12 -- Berlin Blockade ends
1949: September -- Communist takeover in China under Mao Zedong
1949: September -- USSR explodes an atomic bomb

1950

1950: February -- Senator Joe McCarthy begins Communist “witch-hunt” in the US
1950: June -- Korean War begins
1953: June 19 -- The Rosenbergs, suspected spies, are executed
1953: July -- Korean War ends
1954: March -- KGB established
1954 -- CIA helps overthrow unfriendly regimes in Iran and Guatemala
1954: July -- Communist takeover of North Vietnam, dividing at the 17th parallel
1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed
1959: January -- Communist takeover in Cuba under Fidel Castro

1960

 1960: November -- John F. Kennedy elected President
1961: April -- Bay of Pigs Invasion
1961: August 13 -- Berlin’s border is closed
1961: August 17 -- Construction of Berlin Wall begins
1962: -- U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased
1962: October -- Cuban Missile Crisis
1963: June -- Six Day War between Israel and its neighbors. US supports Israel leading to Middle Eastern countries creating an Oil Embargo with the US.
1963: July -- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified
1963: November -- President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas
1964: August -- Gulf of Tonkin incident is used as an excuse to go to war with Vietnam
1965: April -- U.S. goes to Dominican Republic to fight Communism
1965: July -- Announcement of dispatching of 150,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam
1967: 75,000 Americans March on Washington to protest Vietnam War
1968: Over 200 student anti-war demonstrations held in US
1968: January -- US launches the Tet Offensive in Vietnam
1968: March -- US soldiers massacre Vietnamese civilians in My Lai Massacre
1968: August -- Soviet troops crush Czechoslovakian revolt
1969: July 20 -- Apollo 11 lands on the moon

1970

1970: April -- President Nixon extends Vietnam War to Cambodia
1970: May -- Ohio National Guardsmen kill 4 student protesters at Kent State
1970: June -- Mississippi National Guardsmen kill 2 student protesters at Jackson State
1973: October -- Israel fights its neighbors again, giving up land for peace
1974: August -- President Nixon resigns due to illegal activity
1975: April 17 -- North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam spreading communism
1979: November -- The Shah of Iran is overthrown, Iranian Hostage Crisis

1980

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

1990: March -- Lithuania becomes independent from the USSR
1990: October 3 -- Germany is reunited
1991: April -- Warsaw Pact ends
1991: August -- Collapse of Soviet Union, Cold War Ends
1992: First Post-Cold War incident, the Persian Gulf War
1992: Yugoslavian civil war breaks out.
1993: World Trade Center attacked by extremists in NYC.
1995: President Bill Clinton settles the genocide by brokering the Dayton Agreement.
1998: October-- Iraq ends cooperation with UN Special Commission to Oversee the Destruction of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
1998: December-- US and British Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign aims to destroy Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs
Origins of War
Truman's Diary-- Bomb
McCarthy Punished
Bay of Pigs Remembered
Iranian Hostage Diary
Zinn on the Iran-Contra Affair
Zinn on the Gulf War

​2000

2001 February-- Britain, US carry out bombing raids to try to disable Iraq's air defence network
2001: September-- 11 Terrorist attack on World Trade Center
2002: September-- US President George W Bush tells UN Iraq poses "grave and gathering danger," British Prime Minister Tony Blair publishes later-discredited dossier on Iraq's military capability.
2003: March-- US-led invasion topples Saddam Hussein's government, marks start of years of violent conflict with different groups competing for power.
2003: December-- Saddam Hussein captured in Tikrit.
2005: January-- Some 8 million vote in elections for a Transitional National Assembly
2008: US President Obama begins withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan
2008: President Obama increases the US use of drone warfare
2011: May-- Obama leads a raid to kill Osama Bin Laden (responsible for 9/11)
Should we have gone to Iraq?
  • Bill Muray of PBS's "Buying the War" click "Watch the Video" 
  • Listen to the 4/7/2015 interview in New Hampshire with Colonel Wilkerson about the Lies in Iraq
Should the US have attacked Iraq? This question was debated by many, but not enough after 9/11. Go to ProCon.org to see the arguments OR watch Zinn consider this below.
This website is the property of the Social Studies Education program at Plymouth State University.
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  • Home
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  • SSE in Context
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    • NHD Project >
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  • Webquests
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      • Objectives
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      • People of the Movement >
        • Martin Luther King Jr.
        • Malcolm X
        • Rosa Parks
        • Orval Faubus
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        • Bull Conner
    • Industrial Tycoon Webquest
  • Blog
  • SS Courses
    • US HISTORY
    • GOVERNMENT
    • PSYCHOLOGY
    • ECONOMICS
    • WORLD HISTORY
    • GEOGRAPHY
  • SSE Resources
    • C3 Teachers
    • Choices Program
    • Civics101 Podcast
    • Edcitement
    • iCivics
    • Newslea
    • Remedial Herstory
    • Stanford History Education Group
    • Teaching Tolerance