Cold War
The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear disaster.
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American and British pilots ferried some 2.3 million tons of supplies into West Berlin on a total of 277,500 flights, in what would be the largest air relief operation in history.
These are the steps that brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.
Reagan's words reflected a shift that was underway as Soviet reforms and protests were pressuring the East German government to open barriers to the West.
Amid an escalating arms race, civil defense drills offered comically simple strategies for surviving an atomic attack.
3 Cold War Close Calls
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The Manhattan Project’s Trinity test—the first atomic bomb detonation—led to infant deaths, cancer and decades of health problems.
Their designs were so radical that test flights over the Nevada desert often prompted a rash of 'UFO' sightings.
Some brought the world’s superpowers to the brink of war; others helped ease the standoff.
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of East Germany began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989.
The historic visit by President Richard Nixon to the People's Republic of China warmed relations between the two nations and substantially altered the balance of power between the U.S., China and the Soviet Union.
The colossal power of the atomic bomb drove the world’s two leading superpowers into a new confrontation.
A temporary solution to organize Germany into four occupation zones led to a divided nation under the Cold War.
After years of wartime rationing, American consumers were ready to spend money—and factories made the switch from war to peacetime production.
Though silent in public, President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to discredit Senator Joseph McCarthy and his red-baiting tactics.
In 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov trusted his intuition and called a warning of an incoming missile a false alarm.
