The cold war lasted from 1945-1991, from when the us dropped bombs on japan to the fall of the soviet union, with many important events in between.
1945- the atomic bombWhen the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6th, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9th, 1945) it was the definite beginning of the Cold War. No one knows for sure, but historians have suggested three possible scenarios contributing to the beginning of one of the longest, yet "coldest" wars in history. Either the US didn't tell the USSR how actually destructive and harming their new weapon was, the atomic bomb lead to a nuclear arms race between the US and USSR, or the Soviets took the dropping of the atomic bomb as a threat.
1957 to 1969- the space raceIn October of 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, in to space. Although Sputnik was only capable of sending meaningless signals back and forth from Earth, it had a profound impact on the world. The US was fearful and saw this as a threat because now there was an "enemy satellite" revolving around the world. No one truly knew what it was capable of doing. The launching of the first man-made satellite into space led to the race to see who was the first to land on the moon. Eventually the US caught up to the USSR's ability to launch objects into space (after many failed attempts), and on July 20th 1969, Apollo 11 delivered Americans astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to be the first men to land on the moon.
1961- the berlin wallAs World War II came to an end, Germany was split into four "allied occupation zones", between the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the US, and France. On August 13th, 1961, Communist eastern Germany started the construction of the Berlin Wall, made of concrete and barbed wire, in order to keep Western "fascists" out in fear that they would attempt to overthrow the government. The Berlin Wall was an important icon of the Cold War, it symbolized the division between the communist USSR and the capitalist US. The Berlin Wall stood strong until eastern Germany announced on November 9th, 1989 that citizens could freely cross the border as they pleased.
1965- us involvement in the vietnam warThe Vietnam War was a civil war between Northern communist Vietnam and South Vietnam, with the help of the United States. The US believed in the domino theory, that if one country "fell" to communism than many others would take the same path as well. This created more tension between the USSR and US because the Soviet Union wanted to promote communism. In 1965 President Johnson made the decision to send troops to Vietnam for actual combat. In the next coming years there were many protests to withdraw US troops from Vietnam. It's commonly believed that the United States never should have gotten involved in the war, because the outcome wouldn't directly affect them. By 1973, the last troops in Vietnam returned back home to the US.
1991- fall of the soviet unionIn December of 1991, the Soviet Union separated into 15 different countries as their communist government fell. There's many reasons why this happened. The amount of non-Russian protesters was too large for the Soviets to control, the way their economy was planned out wasn't prepared for decline, and the ideology of Communism in the USSR wasn't strong enough. Within a year, the USSR completely fell. This meant the end of communism for the country and the end of the tension between the US and the Soviets.
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