7: After Stalin: 1953-1956 | Cold War

1: Comrades: 1917-1945 | Cold War

Both the United States and the Soviet Union drifted apart after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War and the Paris Peace C...

2: Iron Curtain: 1945-1947 | Cold War

The wartime allies demobilise - the United States enjoys its economic strength and resurgence while Britain and the rest of Europe is e...

3: Marshall Plan: 1947-1952 | Cold War

For both altruistic and self-serving purposes, the United States provides massive grants of aid to the countries of Europe in the form...

4: Berlin: 1948-1949 | Cold War

By 1947, the United States placed as a high priority the revival of the German economy, an approach opposed by the Soviet Union. After the in...

5: Korea: 1949-1953 | Cold War

Korea after the Second World War was occupied by both the Soviets and the Americans, who respectively installed Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee a...

6: Reds: 1948-1953 | Cold War

The fears the leadership of both sides had were projected inwards towards their own people. In the United States the House Committee on Un-Amer...

7: After Stalin: 1953-1956 | Cold War

Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet leader after the death of Stalin. Khrushchev rolls back a number of oppressive measures that existed u...

8: Sputnik: 1949-1961 | Cold War

As a consequence of the atomic spies, the Soviet Union joined the nuclear club, and the two superpowers compete to develop their nuclear ars...

9: The Wall: 1958-1963 | Cold War

West Germany, and West Berlin, become more affluent, prompting a surge of East Germans to cross the borders in Berlin, kept open under the ...

10: Cuba: 1959-1962 | Cold War

Fidel Castro comes to power following the Cuban Revolution. Cuba aligns itself with the Soviet Union and the government starts nationalising A...

11: Vietnam: 1954-1968 | Cold War

After losing the Battle of Dien Bien Phu the French leave Vietnam. A stream of refugees flee to the south after the Communist north institu...

12: MAD: 1960-1972 | Cold War

The United States nuclear strategy of counterforce, intended to counter a Soviet conventional attack by targeting military facilities, is discr...

14: Red Spring: 1960s | Cold War

Likewise the Soviet Union started the decade with growing openness and optimism. There was also an emerging cohort of youth with no memory o...

15: China: 1949-1972 | Cold War

Following the Chinese Revolution Mao Zedong aligns China firmly with the Soviet Union. China becomes the recipient of Soviet aid, supports Co...

16: Détente: 1969-1975

Nixon builds closer relations with China and the USSR, hoping to leverage an honourable US exit from Indochina. The Soviet Union is fearful of a US-C...

17: Good Guys, Bad Guys: 1967-1978 | Cold War

Under Détente the superpowers continued their rivalry, but carefully avoided direct conflict by courting allies in the developi...

18: Backyard: 1954-1990 | Cold War

The United States saw the emergence of leftist movements in different Latin American countries as threatening to its commercial interests,...

19: Freeze: 1977-1981 | Cold War

Carter's ambitious proposals for total multilateral nuclear disarmament are rejected by Brezhnev; his championing of human rights does not w...

20: Soldiers of God: 1975-1988 | Cold War

Nur Mohammad Taraki comes to power in Afghanistan and attempts to modernise the country on Marxist-Leninist lines, provoking a rebe...

21: Spies: 1944-1994 | Cold War

Throughout the Cold War both sides sought intelligence about their opponents using spies, satellites and other means. For political reasons, ...

22: Star Wars: 1981-1988 | Cold War

Reagan's 1983 ''Evil Empire'' speech sets the tone for a more aggressive US posture against the Soviet Union, and the costly arms race is...

23: The Wall Comes Down: 1989 | Cold War

Gorbachev makes clear Eastern European countries were free to determine their own destinies. In Poland Solidarity enters into negoti...