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March–April: U.S. and Britain outraged as Stalin excludes them from a role in Poland and turns Poland over to a Communist puppet government he controls.[4]
March–April: Stalin is outraged at inaccurate reports about Operation Sunrise that American Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland is negotiating a surrender of German forces; he demands a Soviet general be present at all negotiations. Roosevelt vehemently denies the allegation but closes down the operation in Switzerland. A Soviet general is present at the negotiations in northern Italy that lead to surrender.[5]
April 12: Roosevelt dies; Vice PresidentHarry S. Truman takes over with little knowledge of current diplomatic efforts, no knowledge of the atomic bomb, and a bias against Russia.[6]
August 9: With no Japanese response to his ultimatums, Truman gives permission for the world's second and last military use of an atomic weapon, against the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
August 12: Japanese forces in Korea surrender to Soviet and American armies.
September 5: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet agent working in the Soviet embassy in Canada, defects and provides proof to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of a Soviet spy ring operating in Canada and the U.S. The revelations help change perceptions of the Soviet Union from an ally to a foe.[9]
October 25: Taiwan is transferred to the Republic of China from Japan.[10] Initially the public is supportive of the transfer but later becomes less so as the newly appointed governor, General Chen Yi gains a reputation for being corrupt and mismanaging the island. Economic problems also occur as the governor extends the scope of the government monopoly over Taiwan's resources in order to sell these goods to the mainland to help fight the Communist forces. The conditions on the island later contribute to the February 28 incident.[11]
March 2: British soldiers withdraw from their zone of occupation in southern Iran. Soviet soldiers remain in their northern sector.
March 5: Winston Churchill warns of the descent of an Iron Curtain across Europe. Named by Winston Churchill, the aim of the Iron Curtain was to create a divide between the developing countries in Europe and the ones still under political influence and dictatorship (Soviet Union).[14]
September 24: Harry S. Truman is presented with the Clifford-Elsey Report, a document which lists Soviet violations of agreements with the United States.
September 27: Nikolai Vasilevich Novikov writes a response to Kennan's Long Telegram, known as the 'Novikov Telegram', in which he states that the United States were "striving for world supremacy".[16]
December 19: French landings in Indochina begin the First Indochina War. They are resisted by the Viet Minh communists, who want national independence.
1947
January 1: The American and British zones of control in Germany are united to form the Bizone, also known as Bizonia.
March 12: President Harry Truman announces the Truman Doctrine starting with the giving of aid to Greece and Turkey in order to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere.
April 16: Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term "Cold War" to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.[18]
May 22: US extends $400 million of military aid to Greece and Turkey, signalling its intent to contain communism in the Mediterranean.
June 5: Secretary of StateGeorge Marshall outlines plans for a comprehensive program of economic assistance for the war-ravaged countries of Western Europe. It would become known throughout the world as the Marshall Plan.
July 11: The US announces new occupation policies in Germany. The occupation directive JCS 1067, whose economic section had prohibited "steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [or] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy", is replaced by the new US occupation directive JCS 1779 which instead notes that "An orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."
September: The Soviet Union forms the Communist Information Bureau (COMINFORM) with which it dictates the actions of leaders and communist parties across its spheres of influence.
October 20: Stanisław Mikołajczyk, leader of the non-communist Polish People's Party, flees the country ahead of impending arrest. Organized, legal political opposition to Polish communism is effectively at an end.
November 14: The United Nations passes a resolution calling for the withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Korea, free elections in each of the two administrations, and the creation of a UN commission dedicated to the unification of the peninsula.
March 17: The Treaty of Brussels, an agreement is signed by Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, creating a collective defense alliance. (It was the precursor to NATO)
April 3: Truman signs the Marshall Plan into effect. By the end of the programs, the United States has given $12.4 billion in economic assistance to Western European countries.
June 21: In Germany, the British zone and the French zone launch a common currency, the Deutsche Mark.
June 24: Stalin orders the Berlin Blockade, closing all land routes from West Germany to Berlin, in an attempt to starve out the French, British, and American forces from the city. In response, the three Western powers launch the Berlin Airlift to supply the citizens of Berlin by air.
June 28: The Soviet Union expels Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (COMINFORM) for the latter's position on the Greek Civil War.
August 15: The United States declares the Republic of Korea to be the legitimate government of the Korean Peninsula, with Syngman Rhee installed as the leader.
September 18: In Indonesia, the Madiun Affair, an uprising carried out by the People's Democratic Front (FDR), begins led by Musso, of the Communist Party of Indonesia. The uprising ends after three months when the Indonesian army captures and kills most of the rebels.
November 20: The American consul and his staff in Mukden, China, are made virtual hostages by communist forces in China. The crisis does not end until a year later, by which time U.S. relations with the new communist government in China had been seriously damaged.
May 11: The Soviet blockade of Berlin ends with the re-opening of access routes to Berlin. The airlift continues until September, in case the Soviets re-establish the blockade. Brune argues, "Moscow realized the blockade had not been successful – it had drawn the Western powers closer together rather than dividing them. Finally, Western countermeasures had inflicted considerable damage on the economic life of East Germany and the other Soviet satellites."[19]
August 29: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb. The test, known to Americans as Joe 1, succeeds, as the Soviet Union becomes the world's second nuclear power.[20]
October 16: Nikos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, declares an end to the armed uprising. The declaration brings to a close the Greek Civil War, and the first successful containment of communism.
February 9: Senator Joseph McCarthy first claims without evidence that Communists have infiltrated the U.S. State Department, leading to a controversial series of anti-Communist investigations in the United States.[25]
February 12: the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a pact of mutual defense.
March 11: Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek moves his capital to Taipei, Taiwan, establishing a stand-off with the People's Republic of China.
April 7: United States State DepartmentDirector of Policy PlanningPaul Nitze issues NSC 68, a classified report, arguing for the adoption of containment as the cornerstone of United States foreign policy. It would dictate US policy for the next twenty years.
June 25: North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War. The United Nations Security Council votes to intervene to defend the South. The Soviet Union cannot veto, as it is boycotting the Security Council over the admission of People's Republic of China.
July 4: United Nations forces engage North Korean forces for the first time, in Osan. They fail to halt the North Korean advance, and fall southwards, towards what would become the Pusan Perimeter.
September 30: United Nations forces land atInchon. Defeating the North Korean forces, they press inland and re-capture Seoul.
October 2: United Nations forces cross the 38th parallel, into North Korea.
October 22: Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, falls to United Nations forces.
October 22: China intervenes in Korea with 300,000 soldiers, catching the United Nations by surprise. However, they withdraw after initial engagements.
November 15: United Nations forces approach the Yalu River. In response, China intervenes in Korea again, but with a 500,000 strong army. This offensive forces the United Nations back towards South Korea.
1951
January 4: Chinese soldiers capture Seoul.
March 14: United Nations forces recapture Seoul during Operation Ripper. By the end of March, they have reached the 38th Parallel, and formed a defensive line across the Korean peninsula.
March 29: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during and after World War II; they were executed on June 19, 1953.
April 11: U.S. President Harry S. Truman fires Douglas MacArthur from command of US forces in Korea due to him demanding nuclear weapons to be used on the enemy.
September 1: Australia, New Zealand, and the United States sign the ANZUS Treaty. This compels the three countries to cooperate on matters of defense and security in the Pacific.
October 10: President Harry S. Truman signs the Mutual Security Act, announcing to the world, and its communist powers in particular, that the U.S. was prepared to provide military aid to "free peoples".
November 14: President Harry Truman asks Congress for U.S. military and economic aid for the communist nation of Yugoslavia.
December 12: the International Authority for the Ruhr lifts part of the remaining restrictions on German industrial production and on production capacity.
April 28: the Treaty of San Francisco, signed by Japan on September 8, 1951, comes into effect, and Japan signs the Treaty of Taipei, formally ending its period of occupation and isolation, and becoming a sovereign state.
July 27: an armistice agreement ends fighting in the Korean War, after Eisenhower threatens the use of nuclear weapons.[29]
August 19: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 assists a royalist coup that restores Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power as the Shah of Iran and ousts Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq (Operation Ajax). The coup was organized because of Iranian nationalization of the oil industry and fears of Iran joining the Soviet camp.
December 4–8: Eisenhower meets with Churchill and Joseph Laniel of France in Bermuda.
1954
January 21: the U.S. launches the world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus. The nuclear submarine would become the ultimate nuclear deterrent.
May 7: the Viet Minh defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu. France withdraws from Indochina, leaving four independent states: Cambodia, Laos, and what became North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The Geneva Accords calls for free elections to unite Vietnam, but none of the major Western powers wish this to occur in the likely case that the Viet Minh (nationalist Communists) would win.
May 17: the Hukbalahap revolt in the Philippines is defeated.
June 2: Senator Joseph McCarthy claims that communists have infiltrated the CIA and the atomic weapons industry.
June 18: the elected leftist Guatemalan government is overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. An unstable rightist regime installs itself. Opposition leads to a guerrilla war with Marxist rebels in which major human rights abuses are committed on all sides. Nevertheless, the regime survives until the end of the Cold War.
August 11: the Taiwan Strait Crisis begins with the Chinese Communist shelling of Taiwanese islands. The US backs Taiwan, and the crisis resolves itself as both sides decline to take action.
September 8: foundation of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) by Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Like NATO, it is founded to resist Communist expansion, this time in the Philippines and Indochina.
October 5: The Free Territory of Trieste is dissolved.
February 24: the Baghdad Pact is founded by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. It is committed to resisting Communist expansion in the Middle East.
March: Soviet aid to Syria begins. The Syrians will remain allies of the Soviets until the end of the Cold War.
April 18: the Asia-Africa Conference (also known as the Bandung Conference) is first held in Bandung, Indonesia.
July: the United States and the United Kingdom cancel offers of aid on the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt due to its arms purchases from the Eastern Bloc. Nasser retaliates by nationalizing the Suez Canal.[33]
October 23: Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Hungarians revolt against the Soviet dominated government. They are crushed by the Soviet military, which reinstates a Communist government.
October 29: Suez Crisis: France, Israel, and the United Kingdom attack Egypt with the goal of removing Nasser from power. International diplomatic pressures force the attackers to withdraw. Canadian Lester B. Pearson encourages the United Nations to send a Peacekeeping force, the first of its kind, to the disputed territory. Lester B. Pearson wins a Nobel Peace Prize for his actions, and soon after becomes Canadian Prime Minister.
November 6: Dwight Eisenhower wins re-election, defeating Adlai Stevenson for the second time in the 1956 presidential election
May 2: Senator Joseph McCarthy succumbs to illness exacerbated by alcoholism and dies.
May 15: the United Kingdom detonates its first hydrogen bomb.
August 31: Malaya gains independence from the United Kingdom.
October 1: the Strategic Air Command initiates 24/7 nuclear alert (continuous until termination in 1991) in anticipation of a Soviet ICBM surprise attack capability.
October 4: Sputnik 1 satellite launched. The same day the Avro Arrow is revealed.
November 3: Sputnik 2 was launched, with the first living being on board, Laika.
November 7: the final report from a special committee called by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to review the nation's defense readiness indicates that the United States is falling far behind the Soviets in missile capabilities, and urges a vigorous campaign to build fallout shelters to protect American citizens.
November 15: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claims that the Soviet Union has missile superiority over the United States and challenges America to a missile "shooting match" to prove his assertion.
December 16–19: NATO holds its first summit in Paris, France. It is the first time NATO leaders have met together since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949.
May 18: On a bombing mission in support of the anti-Sukarno Permesta Rebellion, a B-26 bomber supplied by the CIA is shot down in Ambon, Indonesia. The pilot, US citizen Allen Lawrence Pope is captured and imprisoned.
June: a C-118 transport, hauling freight from Turkey to Iran, is shot down. The nine crew members are released by the Russians little more than a week later.[34]
July 14: a coup in Iraq, the 14 July Revolution, removes the pro-British monarch. Iraq begins to receive support from the Soviets. Iraq will maintain close ties with the Soviets throughout the Cold War.
September 1: Iceland expands its fishing zone. United Kingdom opposed the action and eventually deploy some of its navy to the zone, thus triggering the cod wars.
October 4: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA is formed.
October 8: Guinea becomes independent from France.
January 1: Fidel Castro wins the Cuban Revolution and becomes the dictator of Cuba. In the next several years Cuban-inspired guerrilla movements spring up across Latin America.[35]
January 2: Luna 1 is launched in an attempt to impact the Moon but due to an error in device's control systems, resulted in the device missing its target by 5,990 kilometres (3,720 mi).
March 3: Pioneer 4 was launched in an attempt to photograph the Moon. The probe failed to achieve its intended target of 32,000 kilometres (20,000 mi) from the Moon, reaching only 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), too distant for its scanners to photograph the Moon.
July 24: during the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev openly debate the capacities of each Superpower. This conversation is known as the Kitchen Debate.
July 31: the Basque conflict officially begins, with the aim of creating an independent state for the Basque people.
August 7: Explorer 6 is launched into orbit to photograph the Earth.
September 13: Luna 2 is launched and becomes the first man-made object to reach the surface on the Moon.
October 4–22: Luna 3 is launched to take photographs of the far side of the Moon. Approximately 70% of the far side was captured; however, on October 7, only 17 of the 29 photos successfully transmitted back to Earth due to issues with signal strength. On October 22, further contact with Luna 3 was lost.[37]
December: formation of the NLF (often called Viet Cong) by North Vietnam. It is a Communist insurgent movement that vows to overthrow the anti-communist South Vietnamese regime. It is supplied extensively by North Vietnam and the USSR eventually.
1960s
1960
February 16: France successfully tests its first atomic bomb, Gerboise Bleue, in the middle of the Algerian Sahara Desert.
April: Jupiter IRBM deployment to Italy begins, placing nuclear missiles within striking range of Moscow (as with the Thor IRBMs deployed in the UK).
June: Jupiter IRBM deployment to Turkey begins, joining the Jupiters deployed to Italy as well as the Thor IRBMs deployed to the UK as nuclear missiles placed within striking distance of Moscow.
February 20: John Glenn is launched into space aboard Friendship-7 becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. Despite having many delays in the launch itself, the flight is successful.
July 1: Rwanda and Burundi become independent from Belgium.
July 20: neutralization of Laos is established by international agreement, but North Vietnam refuses to withdraw its personnel.[38]
October 16: Cuban Missile Crisis: the Soviets have secretly been installing military bases, including nuclear weapons, on Cuba, some 90 miles from the US mainland. Kennedy orders a "quarantine" (a naval blockade) of the island that intensifies the crisis and brings the US and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war. In the end, both sides reach a compromise. The Soviets back down and agree to withdraw their nuclear missiles from Cuba, in exchange for a secret agreement by Kennedy pledging to withdraw similar American missiles from Turkey and Italy, and guaranteeing that the US will not move against the Castro regime.
November 1: the Soviet Union successfully launches Mars 1 with the intention of making a flyby of Mars.
November 20: end of the Sino-Indian War. The People's Republic of China ends up withdrawing from most of the land it occupies but does end up occupying 14,700 square miles (38,000 km2) of the Aksai Chin region and the area would remain a source of contention between the India and the People's Republic of China.[39]
September 25: a border war was fought between Morocco and Algeria.
October 14: the Aden Emergency begins against British rule.
November 2: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated in a coup. CIA involvement is suspected.
November 22: John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in Dallas. There has been some speculation over whether communist countries, or even the CIA, were involved in the assassination, but those theories remain controversial. Kennedy's vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President of the United States.
December 12: Kenya becomes independent from the UK.
March 31–April 1: a military-led coup d'état overthrows president João Goulart in Brazil. Goulart's proposals, such as land reform and bigger control of the state in the economy, were seen as communist.
April 20: U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in New York, and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, announce simultaneously plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons.
July 4: the Rhodesian Bush War begins when African nationalist / Marxist insurgents rebel against colonial rule in Rhodesia (modern -day Zimbabwe). Malawi becomes independent from the UK.
August 4: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson claims that North Vietnamese naval vessels had fired on two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Although there was a first attack, it was later shown that American vessels had entered North Vietnamese territory first, and that the claim of second attack had been unfounded. The Gulf of Tonkin incident leads to the open involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
September 21: Malta becomes independent from the UK.
February 3: Luna 9 successfully lands on the Moon becoming the first spacecraft to softly land on another extraterrestrial body.
March 1: Venera 3 becomes the first man-made object to impact another planet.[43]
March 10: France withdraws from NATO command structure.
March 11: President Sukarno of Indonesia signs a document, handing over authority to Major General Suharto. This led to Suharto later establishing the pro-western and anti-communist New Order regime. This regime would remain in power until 1998.
May 8: Communist China detonates a third nuclear device.
April 25: 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries sign the Treaty of Tlatelolco in Mexico City, which seek the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean.
May 25: Uprising in Naxalbari, India marking the expansion of Maoism as a violent, anti-US and anti-Soviet, revolutionary movement across a number of developing countries.
May 30: the Nigerian state of Biafra secedes from the rest of Nigeria, declaring itself as the Republic of Biafra.
June 5: in response to Egypt's aggression, Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula, beginning the Six-Day War.
December 21–27: The launch of Apollo 8, the first crewed spaceflight to enter the gravitational influence of another celestial body and to orbit the Moon. The crew would complete ten orbits, then return to Earth without landing on the Moon.
1969
January 20: Richard Nixon becomes President of the United States.
March 2: Border clashes between the Soviet Union and China.
March 17: the U.S. begins bombing Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.
December 12: A bomb planted by far-right extremists sets off in a bank in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and injuring 88. This event (remembered as the Piazza Fontana bombing) is one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks Italy would receive during the years of lead.
1970s
1970
January 15: the Nigerian Civil War ends with Biafra being re-integrated into Nigeria.
November 14: Mariner 9 arrives at Mars orbit becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
December 2: Mars 3 arrives in Mars orbit and deploys its lander. The lander is successful in becoming the first spacecraft to softly land on Mars but transmits for 20 seconds before losing contact.
February 21: Nixonvisits China, the first visit by a U.S. president since the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
March 30: Viet Cong (also called the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, or NLF) goes to the offensive in South Vietnam, only to be repulsed by the South Vietnamese regime with major American air support.
April: mass killings known as the Ikiza occurred in Burundi committed by the Tutsi-dominated army against the Hutus.
April 10: Biological Weapons Convention is signed banning the production, development and stockpiling of biological weapons.
February 21: Vientiane Treaty is signed as a cease-fire agreement for the Laotian Civil War. The treaty calls for the removal of all foreign soldiers from Laos . The treaty calls for a coalition government to be created but never materialized.
June 21: West Germany and East Germany are each admitted to the United Nations.
July 10: The Bahamas becomes independent from the UK.
October 22: Egypt defects to the American camp by accepting a U.S. cease-fire proposal during the October 1973 war.
November 11: the Soviet Union announces that, because of its opposition to the recent overthrow of the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, it will not play a World Cup Soccer match against the Chilean team if the match is held in Santiago.
1974
February 7: Grenada becomes independent from the UK.
April 30: North Vietnam wins the Vietnam War. The South Vietnam regime falls with the surrender of Saigon and the two countries are united under a Communist government.
May 12: Mayagüez incident: the Khmer Rouge seize an American naval ship, prompting American intervention to recapture the ship and its crew. In the end, the crew is released from captivity.
June 8: Venera 9, a Soviet uncrewed space mission to Venus, is launched.
June 25: Portugal withdraws from Angola and Mozambique, where Marxist governments are installed, the former with backing from Cuban troops. Civilwar engulfs both nations and involves Angolans, Mozambicans, South Africans, and Cubans, with the superpowers supporting their respective ideologies.
July 5: Cape Verde becomes independent from Portugal.
July 15: the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project takes place. It is the first joint flight of the US and Soviet space programs. The mission is seen as a symbol of détente and an end to the "space race".
June 6: U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance assures skeptics that the Carter administration will hold the Soviet Union accountable for its recent crackdowns on human rights activists.
June 27: Djibouti becomes independent from France.
June 30: the Carter administration cancels the planned Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber.
July 21–24: Egypt and Libya fought a war at the Egyptian-Libyan border.
July 23: the Ogaden War begins when Somalia attacks Ethiopia.
March 16: Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped in Rome by a far-left extremist terrorist group called the Red Brigades. His body would be found on the 9th of May after 55 days of captivity.
May 9: Civil war breaks out in El Salvador between Marxist-led insurgents and the U.S.-backed government.
June 2: Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to his native Poland.
June 18: U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT II agreement, outlining limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons.
July 3: President Carter signs the first directive for financial aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul, Afghanistan.[46]
September: Nur Mohammed Taraki, The Marxist president of Afghanistan, is deposed and murdered. The post of president is taken up by Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin.
November 4: Islamist Iranian students take over the American embassy in support of the Iranian Revolution. The Iran hostage crisis lasts until January 20, 1981.
November 20–December 4: Juhayman al-Otaybi and his followers seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
December 12: NATO Double-Track Decision – NATO offers mutual limitation of ballistic missiles combined with the threat that in case of disagreement NATO would deploy more middle-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe.
January 20: Ronald Reagan inaugurated 40th President of the United States. Reagan is elected on a platform opposed to the concessions of détente. Also that day the Iran hostage crisis ends.[48]
April 1: the United States suspends economic aid to Nicaragua.
August 19: Gulf of Sidra Incident: Libyan planes attack U.S. jets in the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya has illegally annexed. Two Libyan jets are shot down; no American losses are suffered.
September 21: Belize becomes independent from the UK. 1,500 British soldiers remain to deter Guatemala from attacking the country over territorial disputes.
February 24: President Ronald Reagan announces the "Caribbean Basin Initiative" to prevent the overthrow of governments in the region by the forces of communism.
March 22: President Ronald Reagan signs P.L. 97-157 denouncing the government of the Soviet Union that it should cease its abuses of the basic human rights of its citizens.[50][51]
July 7: Ten-year-old American child Samantha Smith accepts the invitation of Soviet leaderYuri Andropov and visits the Soviet Union with her parents. Smith had written to Andropov to ask if he would "vote to have a war or not?". Smith's letter, published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda, prompted Andropov to reply and invite the girl to the USSR. The widely publicized event leads to other Soviet–American cultural exchanges.
September 26: the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident occurs. The U.S.S.R. nuclear early warning system reports launch of multiple U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, correctly identifies them as false alarms. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack based on erroneous data on the United States and its NATO allies, which likely would have resulted in nuclear war and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.
October 25: U.S. forces invade the Caribbean island of Grenada in an attempt to overthrow the Communist government, expel Cuban troops, and abort the construction of a Soviet-funded airstrip.
November 2: exercise Able Archer 83 – Soviet anti-aircraft misinterpret a test of NATO's nuclear warfare procedures as a fake cover for an actual NATO attack; in response, Soviet nuclear forces are put on high alert.
July 28: various allies of the Soviet Union boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics (July 28 – August 12) in Los Angeles.
August 11: during a microphone sound check for his weekly radio address, President Ronald Reagan jokes about bombing the Soviet Union. "My fellow Americans", Reagan says. "I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." The quip is not aired but is leaked to the press.[54] The Soviet Union temporarily puts its defense forces on high alert.
December 16: Margaret Thatcher and the UK government, in a plan to open new channels of dialog with Soviet leadership candidates, meet with Mikhail Gorbachev at Chequers.
1985
February 6: the Reagan Doctrine commits the United States of America to supporting anti-Communist insurgencies in the Third World.
August 6: coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union begins what it has announced is a 5-month unilateral moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons. The Reagan administration dismisses the dramatic move as nothing more than propaganda and refuses to follow suit. Gorbachev declares several extensions, but the United States fails to reciprocate, and the moratorium comes to an end on February 5, 1987.
November 21: Reagan and Gorbachev meet for the first time at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, where they agree to two (later three) more summits.
October 11–12: Reykjavik Summit: a breakthrough in nuclear arms control.
October 19: The pro-Marxist interim President of Mozambique, Samora Machel, is killed when the aircraft he is travelling in crashes in South Africa.
November 3: Iran–Contra affair: the Reagan administration publicly announces that it has been selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and illegally transferring the profits to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1987
January 16: natives within the Party who oppose his policies of economic redevelopment[clarification needed] (Perestroika). It is Gorbachev's hope that through initiatives of openness, debate and participation, that the Soviet people will support Perestroika.
June 12: during a visit to West Berlin, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in a speech: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (The Berlin Wall).
June 15: Famous Italian Singer and Songwriter Adriano Celentano lands in Moscow to present his movie Joan Lui in Soviet theaters, another step that opens the Soviet world to the Western one.
December 8: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Some later claim this was the unofficial beginning of the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev agrees to START I treaty.
December 9: the First Intifada was waged by Palestinians against the Israeli government.
May 29–June 1: Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Moscow. INF Treaty ratified. When asked if he still believes that the Soviet Union is still an evil empire, Reagan replies he was talking about "another time, another era".
February 14: the Contra war effectively ends with the Tesoro Beach Accords happening in El Salvador with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua participating. An agreement is made that all contra forces are to disband in return for a free election to be held in February 1990. Although a few groups initially reject the agreement they eventually decide to participate.[55]
February 15: the Afghan Civil War begins after Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan.
February 19–21: Jakarta Informal Meeting II was held in Jakarta. This meeting succeeded in finding two important issues, namely the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and the prevention of the return of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Later, efforts to resolve the conflict will continue in International Conference in Paris on July 30–31, 1989.
June 4: Tiananmen Square Massacre: Beijing protests are crushed by the communist Chinese government, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.
June 4: elections in Poland show complete lack of backing for the Communist Party; Solidarity trade union wins all available seats in the Parliament and 99% in the Senate.
August 19: the opening of the border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic set in motion a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.
August 23: Baltic Way: independence protesters in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania set up a human chain across the three Baltic states, from Tallinn to Vilnius via Riga.
August: Parliament in Poland elects Tadeusz Mazowiecki as leader of the first non-communist government in the Eastern Bloc.
November 9: revolutions of Eastern Europe: Soviet reforms have allowed Eastern Europe to change the Communist governments there. The Berlin Wall is breached when Politburo spokesman, Günter Schabowski, not fully informed of the technicalities or procedures of the newly agreed lifting of travel restrictions, mistakenly announces at a news conference in East Berlin that the borders have been opened.
November 10: Todor Zhivkov, the Communist leader of Bulgaria, is removed from office after 35 years in power.
December 3: at the end of the Malta Summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush declare that a long-lasting era of peace has begun. Many observers regard this summit as the official beginning of the end of the Cold War.
December 10: the Mongolian Revolution begins when Mongolians held peaceful demonstrations to end the one-party rule in the country.
May 29: Boris Yeltsin is elected as the president of Russia. Yeltsin would serve as Russia's president until resigning on December 31, 1999 with Vladimir Putin taking over.[56]
June 12: Russia issues the Declaration of Sovereignty but never officially declares its independence from the Soviet Union.[57] With the declaration, it declares that the laws and constitution of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) to be above those of the Soviet Union.[58] The loss of the RSFSR which was the most powerful of all the Soviet republics is a major blow to the Soviet Union.[59]
September 7: Macedonia holds an independence referendum with a majority voting in favor of independence.[75]
September 9: Tajikistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.[76]
September 21: Armenia holds an independence referendum with a majority voting for independence from the Soviet Union[77] despite declaring independence in August 1990.
^Amy W. Knight, How the Cold War began: The Gouzenko affair and the hunt for Soviet spies (2005).
^Liew, Leong H.; Wang, Shaoguang (2012). Nationalism, Democracy and National Integration in China. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781134397495 – via Google Books. The simple transfer of sovereignty from the defeated Japanese authorities to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government that ruled Mainland China was accomplished in a single day, 25 October 1945. The transfer of sovereignty was, however, much more complex than an official ceremonial task
^Schubert, Gunter (2016). Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Taiwan. Taylor & Francis. p. 71. ISBN 9781317669708 – via Google Books. The brewing tensions finally erupted in the 2.28 Incident, which lasted from February 27 until mid-March 1947.
^M. Steven Fish, "After Stalin's Death: The Anglo-American Debate Over a New Cold War." Diplomatic History 10.4 (1986): 333-355.
^Christian F. Ostermann, and Malcolm Byrne, eds. Uprising in East Germany 1953: the Cold War, the German question, and the first major upheaval behind the Iron Curtain (Central European UP, 2001).
^Edward C. Keefer, "President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the End of the Korean War." Diplomatic History 10.3 (1986): 267-289.
^ abEder, Christoph; Halla, Martin (2020). The Long-lasting Shadow of the Allied Occupation of Austria on its Spatial Equilibrium(PDF). p. 6. Retrieved October 27, 2024. On May 15, 1955 the Austrian State Treaty was signed among the Allied occupying forces and re-established a free, sovereign, and democratic Austria by July 27, 1955. As a result of this treaty, the Allies left Austrian territory on October 25, 1955.
^Powers, Francis (1960). Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-57488-422-7.
^Thomas C. Wright, Latin America in the era of the Cuban Revolution (Greenwood, 2001).
^Carlson, Peter (2009), K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khurshchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist, PublicAffairs, ISBN 978-1-58648-497-2
^ ab"Sino-Indian War". Encyclopedia Brittanica. 1962. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
^Boyle, Andrew (1979). The Fourth Man: The Definitive Account of Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean and Who Recruited Them to Spy for Russia. New York: The Dial Press/James Wade. p. 438
^"Boris Yeltsin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
^Kuzio, Taras (2015). "Ukrainian Dissent, Opposition, and Religion in the USSR". Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism. Praeger. ISBN 9798216158691. Retrieved October 18, 2023 – via Google Books. Following the failed August 1991 putsch, Russia did not declare independence from the USSR, and Russia Day (the name of the holiday since 2002) is celebrated each year to commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian SFSR on June 12, 1990.
^Coyle, James J. (2017). "Moldova". Russia's Border Wars and Frozen Conflicts. Springer International Publishing. p. 164. ISBN 9783319522043 – via Google Books. On June 12, 1990, the President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), Boris Yeltsin, signed a declaration of the RSFSR's Congress of People's Deputies that held the constitution and laws of the RSFSR took priority over the legislation of the USSR.
^Piddock, Charles (2006). Bergman, Jay (ed.). Kazakhstan. World Almanac Library. p. 22. ISBN 9780836867084 – via Google Books.
^Kassymova, Didar; Kundakbaeva, Zh. B.; Kundakbayeva, Zhanat; Markus, Ustina (2012). Historical Dictionary of Kazakhstan. pp. XXXI. ISBN 9780810879836 – via Google Books. 25 October: Declaration on state sovereignty by Kazakhstan
^"Kazakhstan declares sovereignty". United Press International. News World Communications. October 25, 1990. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
^Kassymova, Didar; Kundakbaeva, Zh. B.; Kundakbayeva, Zhanat; Markus, Ustina (2012). Historical Dictionary of Kazakhstan. Scarecrow Press. pp. XXI. ISBN 9780810879836. 10 December: Law on renaming the Kazakh SSR to the Republic of Kazakhstan.
^Jones, Stephen (2013). Georgia: A Political History Since Independence. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85773-586-7. Retrieved April 11, 2024 – via Google Books. 1991 (March 31st) 89.7 percent of eligible electors - including non-Georgians (most Abkhazians and South Ossetians boycotted the vote) vote in a national referendum for independence.
^Jones, Stephen (2013). Georgia: A Political History Since Independence. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9780857735867. Retrieved April 11, 2024 – via Google Books. 1991 (April 9th) Independence of Georgia is declared.
^"Ukrainian Independence Referendum". Seventeen Moments in Soviet History: An on-line archive of primary sources. 28 September 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
^"Belarus -Soviet Socialist Republic, Emergence, History". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved October 18, 2023. Amid the crisis of central authority in the U.S.S.R. in the early 1990s, the Belorussian S.S.R. declared sovereignty (July 27, 1990) and independence (August 25, 1991).
^"45. Moldova (1991-present)". University of Central Arkansas: Government Public Service and International Studies. Retrieved October 27, 2024. Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 27, 1991.
^Drapac, Vesna (2010). "Chronology". Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 268. ISBN 9781137094094. Retrieved April 11, 2024 – via Google Books. 1991 (7 September) Referendum in Macedonia leads to vote of 74 percent in favour of independence.
^Nourzhanov, Kirill; Bleuer, Christian (2013). "The Rise of Opposition, the Contraction of the State and the Road to Independence". Tajikistan: A Political and Social History. ANU E Press. p. 228. ISBN 9781925021165 – via Google Books. On 9 September 1991, the Government of Tajikistan declared independence. The communist era in the history of Tajikistan came to an end.
^ ab"TURKMENISTAN'S REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE". Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. October 26, 1991. Retrieved September 10, 2023. On October 26, 1991, Turkmenistan held a referendum on independence. Over 97 percent of eligible voters turned out to answer "Yes" or "No" to two questions, the first dealing with the republic's independence, the second seeking approval of President Saparmurad Niyazov's political and economic program. Over 94 percent of participants voted for independence; almost as high a percentage of voters voiced backing for Niyazov. On October 27, an extraordinary session of Turkmenistan's Supreme Soviet declared independence.
^Lapidus, Gail W. (Summer 1998). "Contested Sovereignty: The Tragedy of Chechnya". International Security. 23 (1): 15–16. doi:10.2307/2539261. JSTOR2539261. Retrieved April 18, 2024 – via JSTOR. The first stage in the unfolding conflict involved the emergence and radicalization of the Chechen national movement in the late 1980s, the election of Dudayev to the presidency, and the adoption of the law on state sovereignty of November 1, 1991.
^"61. Kazakhstan (1991-present)". University of Central Arkansas. Retrieved July 7, 2024. Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on December 16, 1991.
^"The End of the Soviet Union". Seventeen Moments in Soviet History: An on-line archive of primary sources. 29 June 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
^"The Collapse of the Soviet Union". United States Department of State: Office of the Historian. Retrieved September 11, 2023. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor.
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