Crisis of the Union

President Harry Truman pledged that the United States would help any nation to resist communism to help it not spread. This is called the Truman Doctrine and it would provide assistance such as military, political, or economically. The United States provided assistance to Greece and Turkey because they felt they were the most threatened by communism. The Soviet Union was responsible for trying to force Greece and Turkey into communism. The doctrine is thought to be the official declaration of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union created a new system of currency which caused chaos. The people could not adjust to the currency change. This caused them to stop railroads and canal links between west Germany and west Berlin. They called this the Berlin Blockade. Since they cut off land and water routes they relied on air for supplies. It lasted eleven months of the United States and Great Britain providing one and a half million tons of supplies. They gave them food medicine and other goods that caused the United States and Great Britain to look like heroes. This made Stalin look like a bad leader so he ended the blockade. During the Cold War there was not any actual fighting but this was considered a win for the United States and got people to join their side.

The Korean War started when 75,000 soldiers from the communist North Korea crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the non-communist South Korea. The 38th Parallel is the boundary between North and South Korea. The invasion from North Korea was the first military action in the Cold War. In July American troops entered the war on the South Korean side. Americans were concerned it was a war against communism itself. At the beginning of the war it was a back and fort across the 38th Parallel and the fighting was beginning to stall. While this was going on the Americans were trying to work out a armistice to stop the war. Americans feared that an alternative would be a war with Russia, China, and maybe even a World War III. The war finally ended in July 1953 and the Korean peninsula is still divided.

The United States tested the first thermonuclear weapon. The thermonuclear weapon was the hydrogen bomb and was tested on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States a short advantage against the Soviet Union in the nuclear arms race. The hydrogen bomb is 1,000 more times powerful than conventional nuclear devices. People like J. Robert Oppenheimer argued that it would only accomplish the speeding up of the nuclear arms race. They would soon be right when the Soviet Union explode their own thermonuclear weapon in a couple of years.

The Hungarian Revolution started out as a protest against the communist rule in Budapest. The next day the protest started to gain momentum and that is when the Soviet Union had tanks enter Budapest. The tanks would then leave on October 28th and a new government would be formed which introduced democracy, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. The Soviet tanks returned to Budapest on November 4th. The Prime Minister Imre announced on a World broadcast that Hungary was under attack from the Soviet Union and was calling for aid. On November 10th Hungary fell to the Soviet Union.

Part of the Cold War competition between the United States and Russia was space exploration. Space exploration started when the Soviet Union or Russia launched the artificial satellite Sputnik into space. This was the first man made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit. The Sputnik launch caused many Americans to be surprised and to also start exploring space. The United States seen space exploration as the next step and to follow the tradition of exploring in America. The United States then created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA.

During this event a Soviet Union shot down a U-2 plane and said the flight was an aggressive act. The United States denied the Soviets claims and said the pilot F. Gary Powers said his mission was to gain Soviet intelligence data. The leader of the Soviets Khrushchev said that the Soviet Union would not go to a summit conference with the United States, Great Britain, and France unless the United States stopped flying over Soviet territory. The United States was also supposed to apologize and punish who ever was involved with the incident. Dwight D. Eisenhower only agreed to the first part of the Soviets demands which caused the meeting to be postponed. Powers was tried by the Soviet Union and was sentenced to ten years in prison. This event was one of the only times that the Soviet Union did physical damage to an American. It caused the tension between the United States and Soviet Union to climb even more.

A young Cuban nationalist named Fidel Castro overthrew General Fulgencio Batista who was an American backed president. This caused the United States State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to take Castro's power away. In 1961 the CIA launched a definitive strike. 1,400 American trained Cubans invaded Cuba and tried to take over Castro. However the invaders were outnumbered and surrendered after 24 hours of fighting. The CIA was trying to over throw Castro because they didn't like his communist government but they failed to do so.

The German Democratic Republic started to build a wall between east and west Berlin. After World War II Germany was split up into four parts among the allies and Berlin was split into the east and west. The Soviet Union was in control of the east and the United States was in charge of the west. The two sides began to not get along which caused a wall to be built dividing the east and west. They made the wall to keep western fascists from entering east Germany and to undermine the socialist state. The wall stopped the residents from being able to move around the city freely and also slowed down emigration. The Berlin wall was to divide the parts of Berlin between the east and west or Soviet Union and United States.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a political and military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States had seen that the Soviet Union was going to install missiles on Cuba. Later President John F. Kennedy announced in a TV address that their are being missies being installed on Cuba and he decided to make a blockade around Cuba and was prepared to use military force on Cuba if needed. This caused many people to panic because they feared a nuclear war was about to happen. The United States and Soviet Union agreed that they would remove the missiles off of Cuba if the United States promised not to invade Cuba.