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After World War II, the United States and its Western allies, mostly represented by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies, mostly represented by the Warsaw Pact, were at odds politically and ideologically. This was known as the Cold War.
Cold War events and parts include:
1. (From 1945 to 1947): The Cold War started after World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union, which had been allies during the war, started to have different ideas and different goals. The US and its Western partners pushed for democracy, capitalism, and open markets, while the USSR pushed for communism and a government-run economy.
2. The Truman Doctrine & the Marshall Plan, both from 1947: In 1947, President Harry S. Truman of the United States revealed the Truman Doctrine, which said that the United States would help countries that were threatened by communism. The Marshall Plan, a plan to help Western Europe get back on its feet after the war, came next. People saw these projects as ways to stop the spread of Soviet power.
3. Putting together military alliances: In 1949, the United States, Canada, & a number of Western European countries came together to form NATO, a military partnership whose goal was to protect each other from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union set up the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which was a similar grouping of communist countries in the Eastern Bloc.
4. The arms race and the spread of nuclear weapons: During the Cold War, the superpowers were in a nuclear arms race. Both the US and the USSR made and tested nuclear bombs that were getting stronger. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis almost led to a nuclear war when the U.S. found Soviet weapons in Cuba.
5. The "Proxy Wars": During the Cold War, the superpowers backed opposite sides in conflicts around the world. This was called a proxy war. Korean War (1950–1953) & Vietnam War (1955–1975) were two important proxy wars.
6. The "Space Race": Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union competed to reach important goals in space travel during the Cold War. The space race began when the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in 1957. It ended when the United States sent Apollo 11 to the moon in 1969.
7. "Détente" and "Controlling Arms": In the 1970s, both countries tried to ease tensions by signing arms control agreements like the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) & the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). This time when people got along better was called détente.
8. When the Cold War ended: In the 1980s, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev started policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), which made the Cold War start to warm up. Together, these changes and the Soviet Union's economic problems led to the end of the Cold War.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991: When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it meant that Germany was no longer split into two parts and that the Cold War was coming to an end. In 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into a number of separate countries, which was the formal end of the Cold War.
The Cold War had huge effects on the whole world. It changed the direction of world events, changed foreign policy, and helped spread ideas, wars, and alliances for most of the 20th century. Its end caused a big change in the way the world's politics worked.
