The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1991 as tensions grew between capitalist Western nations led by the US and communist Eastern nations led by the Soviet Union. Key events that heightened tensions included the Soviet blockade of Berlin, the rise of communism in China, the Korean War, McCarthyism in the US, and the space race including Sputnik and the moon landing. The Cold War began to thaw in the 1970s with diplomacy between the US and China and arms control agreements between the US and Soviet Union, but tensions remained high throughout the four decades of the ideological battle between East and West.

9. The history of the Cold War

10. East versus West, capitalism versus communism: the Cold
War lasted from the end of World War II until the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991.

12. The end of World War II set the stage for the Cold War, the struggle
between communism and capitalism that pitted East against West
and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. The Crimean
resort town of Yalta was the setting for an historic meeting of British,
U.S. and Soviet leaders -- Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt
and Josef Stalin -- in February 1945.
With the defeat of Nazi Germany imminent, the Big Three allies
agreed to jointly govern postwar Germany, while Stalin pledged fair
and open elections in Poland.

13. The decision by the United States to use the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945 was credited with ending World
War II. Hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed instantly or died from radiation in the aftermath of
the bombings.

14. President Harry S. Truman introduces Winston Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. In
his speech, the former British prime minister declared, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain
has descended across the Continent."

15. In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a massive aid program to rebuild Europe after the ravages of
World War II. Nearly $13 billion in U.S. aid was sent to Europe from 1948 to 1952 under the Marshall Plan, but the Soviet
Union and communist Eastern Europe declined U.S. aid, citing "dollar enslavement." Here, an American worker paints the
Marshall Plan logo on a machine tool ready to be exported to Europe.

16. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union made a bid for control of Berlin by blockading all land access to the city. Berlin was
divided into four sectors under U.S., British, French and Soviet control, but the city itself lay entirely in Soviet-occupied
eastern Germany. From June 1948 to May 1949, U.S. and British planes airlifted 1.5 million tons of supplies to the residents
of West Berlin. After 200,000 flights, the Soviet Union lifted the blockade. Here, a tattered group of Berliners stand amid the
ruins of a building near Tempelhof Airfield as a C-47 cargo plane brings food to the city.

17. In June 1949, Chinese Communists declared victory over Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces, who later fled to Taiwan. On
October 1, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Two months later, Mao (left) traveled to Moscow to
meet with Josef Stalin (right) and negotiate the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance.

18. In August 1949, President Truman signed the North Atlantic Treaty, which marked the beginning of NATO. Two years
earlier, he requested $400 million in aid from Congress to combat communism in Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine
pledged to provide American economic and military assistance to any nation threatened by communism.

19. On June 25, 1950, North Korean Communist forces invaded South Korea. Two days later, President Truman ordered U.S.
forces to assist the South Koreans. Here, U.S. Marines land at Inchon as the battle rages. Three years later, an armistice
agreement was signed, with the border between North and South roughly the same as it had been in 1950. The willingness
of China and North Korea to end the fighting was in part attributed to the death of Stalin in March. There has never been a
peace treaty, so the Korean War, technically, has never ended.

20. On March 29, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of selling U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The
Rosenbergs were sent to the electric chair in 1953, despite outrage from liberals who portrayed them as victims of an anti-communist
witch hunt.

21. The Rosenbergs' conviction helped fuel the rise of McCarthyism, the anti-communist campaign led by U.S. Sen. Joseph
McCarthy of Wisconsin in 1953-54 at the peak of the Cold War. Nearly 400 Americans -- including the ordinary, the famous
and some who wore the uniform of the U.S. military -- were interrogated in secret hearings, facing accusations from
McCarthy and his staff about their alleged involvement in communist activities. While McCarthy enjoyed public attention
and initially advanced his career with the start of the hearings, the tide turned. His harsh treatment of Army officers in the
secret hearings precipitated his downfall.

22. In 1955, the Warsaw Pact was organized, creating a military alliance of communist nations in Eastern Europe that included
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union. Here, the Soviet Army marches
during May Day celebrations in 1954.

23. On Oc tober 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launch ed Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. In 1958, the United
States created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the space race was in full gear.

24. On January 1, 1959, leftist forces under Fidel Castro overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Castro soon
nationalized the sugar industry and signed trade agreements with the Soviet Union. The next year, his government seized
U.S. assets on the island.

25. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev speaks at the 1960 Paris Summit, which was interrupted when an American high-altitude
U-2 spy plane was shot down on a mission over the Soviet Union. After the Soviets announced the capture of pilot Francis
Gary Powers, the United States recanted earlier assertions that the plane was on a weather research mission.

26. A hand reaches over the glass imbedded in the newly constructed Berlin Wall, which divided the eastern and western
sectors of the city in August 1961. The U.S. had rejected proposals by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to make Berlin a
"free city" with access controlled by East Germany, and on August 15, Communist authorities began construction on the
wall to prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Berlin.

27. In 1961, a U.S.-organized invasion of 1,400 Cuban exiles is defeated by Castro's forces at the Bay of Pigs. U.S. President
John F. Kennedy takes full responsibility for the disaster. The next year, the Soviet Union installs nuclear missiles on Cuba
capable of reaching most of the U.S. Kennedy orders a naval blockade of Cuba until the Soviets removes the missiles; he
announces the move on TV (pictured). Six days later, the Soviets agree to remove the missiles, defusing one of the most
dangerous confrontations of the Cold War. In 1963, the U.S. and Soviet Union agreed to install a hot line allowing the
leaders to communicate directly during a crisis.

28. An estimated 250,000 people crammed a large Berlin square to hear President Kennedy speak in 1963. "All free men,
wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin," Kennedy told the crowd. "And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the
words, 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'" A few months later, the president would be assassinated in Dallas, an event that jarred the
nation and the world.

29. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964. The resolution, approved by Congress,
gave Johnson power to send U.S. troops to South Vietnam after it was alleged that North Vietnamese patrol boats had fired
on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.

30. Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground
troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp northwest of Saigon, near the Cambodian border, in March 1965. The Vietnam War
lasted nearly a decade and left more than 58,000 Americans dead.

31. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched an attack that becomes known as the Six Day War, seizing the Sinai and Gaza Strip from
Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. The Soviet Union accused the
United States of encouraging Israeli aggression. Here, several Israeli soldiers stand close together in front of the Western
Wall in the old city of Jerusalem following its recapture.

32. On January 5, 1968, reformer Alexander Dubcek became general secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia,
pledging the "widest possible democratizations" as the Prague Spring movement swept across the country. Soviet and
Warsaw Pact leaders sent an invasion force of 650,000 troops in August. Dubcek was arrested and hard-liners were restored
to power. Here, residents carrying a Czechoslovak flag and throwing burning torches attempt to stop a Soviet tank in Prague
on August 21, 1968.

33. Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. salutes the U.S. flag on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. He and mission
commander Neil Armstrong became the first humans to walk on the moon. Their mission was considered an American
victory in the Cold War and subsequent space race, meeting President Kennedy's goal, voiced in 1961, of "landing a man
on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" before the end of the decade.

34. Chinese leader Mao Zedong shakes hands with U.S. President Richard Nixon after their meeting in Beijing on February 22,
1972. Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit China. The two countries issued a communiqué recognizing their
"essential differences" while making it clear that "normalization of relations" was in all nations' best interests. The
rapprochement changed the balance of power with the Soviets. Two-and-a-half years later, Nixon resigned as president
amid the Watergate scandal.

35. U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shake hands after signing the SALT II treaty limiting
strategic arms in Vienna, Austria, on June 18, 1979. The first phase of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in Helsinki,
Finland, with a finished agreement signed by President Nixon and Brezhnev in Moscow on May 26, 1972. It placed limits on
both submarine-launched and intercontinental nuclear missiles.

36. President Ronald Reagan talks to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a two-day summit between the superpowers in
Geneva, Switzerland on November 21, 1985. Gorbachev ushered in an era of economic reforms under perestroika and
greater political freedoms under glasnost. Two years later, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty in Washington. It mandated the removal of more than 2,600 medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe,
eliminating the entire class of Soviet SS-20 and U.S. Cruise and Pershing II missiles.

37. President Reagan, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin, addresses the people of West Berlin at the base of the
Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987. Due to the amplification system being used, the President's
words could also be heard on the Eastern (communist-controlled) side of the wall. "Tear down this wall!" was the famous
appeal by Reagan, directed at Gorbachev, to destroy the Berlin Wall. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered
by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet bloc.

38. Soviet troops cross the Soviet-Afghan border along the bridge over the Amu Darya river near the town of Termez,
Uzbekistan, during their withdrawal from Afghanistan on February 6, 1989. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979
as communist Babrak Karmal seized control of the government. U.S.-backed Muslim guerrilla fighters waged a costly war
against the Soviets for nearly a decade.

39. A demonstrator pounds away at the Berlin Wall as East Berlin border guards look on from above the Brandenburg Gate on
November 11, 1989. Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, which pledged to use Soviet force to protect its interests
in Eastern Europe. On September 10, Hungary opened its border with Austria, allowing East Germans to flee to the West.
After massive public demonstrations in East Germany and Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9.

40. The fal l of the Berlin Wall. West Berlin citize ns hold a vigil atop the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate on
November 10, 1989, the day after the East German government opened the border between East and West
Berlin. (Reuters/David Brauchli)

41. The fall of the Berlin Wall. East German border policemen refuse to shake hands with a Berliner who stretches out his hand
over the border fence at the eastern site nearby Checkpoint Charlie on November 10th, 1989, after the borders were
opened. (AP Photo/Lutz Schmidt, File)

42. The fal l of the Berlin Wall. People stand on a section of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz. which was opened up on the
morning of November 11th, 1989. (John Tlumacki/Boston Globe staff)

43. The fal l of the Berlin Wall. East German bor der guards look through a hole in the Berlin wall after demonstrators pulled
down one segment of the wall at Brandenburg gate on November 11th, 1989. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)

44. The fal l of the Berlin Wall. A man hammers away at the Berlin Wall on November 12, 1989 as the border barrier between
East and West Germany was torn down.(AP Photo/John Gaps III)

45. The fall of the Berlin Wall. A German youth waves victoriously from the top of the Berlin Wall after the fall of. Peter Turnley/Corbis .

46. The fall of the Berlin Wall. Mstislav Rostropovich playing Bach as the Berlin Wall falls, November 11, 1989.

47. While vacationing in the Crimean peninsula, Gorbachev was ousted in a coup by Communist hard-liners on August 19,
1991. The coup soon faltered as citizens took to the streets of Moscow and other cities in support of Russian President
Boris Yeltsin (pictured), who denounced the coup. Military units abandoned the hard-liners, and Gorbachev was released
from house arrest. He officially resigned on December 25 as the Soviet Union was dissolved.

48. The Fall of the Soviet Union. About 100,000 demonstrators march on the Kremlin in Moscow on January 20, 1991. Many
called for the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev protesting against the Soviet army crackdown against the
nationalist Lithuanian authorities. Lithuania had been the first Baltic Republic to proclaim its independence in March
1990. (Vitaly Armand/AFP/Getty Images)

49. The Fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet Army tanks parked near Spassky Gate, an entrance to the Kremlin and Basil's
Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square after a coup toppled Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on August 19, 1991. Tanks
rolled through Moscow towards the Russian White House, where Boris Yeltsin, leader of the Soviet-era Russian republic at
the time, gathered his supporters after denouncing the coup. (Dima Tanin/AFP/Getty Images)

50. The Fall of the Soviet Union. A soldier waves a Russian flag from the top of his tank as armored units leave their positions in
Moscow following the collapse of the military coup against president Gorbachev on August 21, 1991. Coup leaders fled the
capital and president Gorbachev was rumored to be returning soon. (Willy Slingerland/AFP/Getty Images)

51. ubilant people step on the head of the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder and chief of the Soviet secret police, later
known as KGB, which was toppled in front of the KGB headquarters in Moscow, on August 23, 1991. The KGB was
responsible for mass arrests and executions.

52. The Fall of the Soviet Union. A woman reaches into her bag, which rests on a fallen Soviet hammer-and-sickle on a
Moscow street in 1991. December 25, 2014 will mark the 23th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. (Alexander
Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)

53. The Fa ll of the Soviet Union. The Soviet flag flies over the Kremlin at Red Square in Moscow, on Saturday night, December
21, 1991. The flag was replaced by the Russian flag on New Year's. (AP Photo/Gene Berman)

56. Fall of the Berlin Wall, November, 1989.Steve McCurry

57. Fall of the Berlin Wall, November, 1989.Steve McCurry
end

58. cast The history of the Cold War
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