A Timeline of Events

TIMELINE OF THE COLD WAR
1940s
1945: February 4-11-- Yalta Conference Cold War Begins
1945: August 6 -- United States first used atomic bomb in war
1945: August 14 -- Japanese surrender End of World War II
1946: March -- Winston Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" Speech
1949: July -- NATO ratified
1949: September -- Mao Zedong, a Communist, takes control of China
1949: September -- Soviets explode first atomic bomb
1950s
1950: February -- Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt
1950: June -- Korean War begins
1953: June 19 -- Rosenberg executions
1953: July -- Korean War ends
1954: March -- KGB established
1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed
1957: October 4 -- Sputnik launched into orbit
1959: January -- Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro
1960s
1961: April -- Bay of Pigs invasion
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
1964: August -- Gulf of Tonkin incident
1965: July -- Announcement of dispatching of 150,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam
1969: July 20 -- Apollo 11 lands on the moon
1970s
1970: April -- President Nixon extends Vietnam War to Cambodia
1974: August -- President Nixon resigns
1975: April 17 -- North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam
1979: November -- Shah of Iran overthrown; Iranian Hostage Crisis
1980s
1983: October -- U.S. troops overthrow regime in Grenada
1985: -- Iran-Contra Affair (arms sold to Iran, profits used to support contras in Nicaragua)
1986: October -- Reagan and Gorbachev resolve to remove all intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe
1989: January -- Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan
1989: November -- Berlin Wall falls