Curated playlist
Arms control treaties
- START IISTART II was signed in 1993 but declared dead without ever taking effect. It aimed to ban missiles with many warheads.
- Outer Space TreatyNo country can claim the Moon, Mars or any asteroid under the Outer Space Treaty. Rivals signed it in 1967.
- START IA 13,000-pound steel blade sliced apart 375 B-52 bombers under the START I arms treaty.
- Strategic Arms Limitation TalksSix months after SALT II was signed, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The US Senate never ratified the treaty.
- Washington Naval TreatyAmerican codebreakers secretly read Japan's cables during the Washington Naval Treaty talks.
- Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to GermanyThe Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow on the 12th of September 1990. Most people know it by a shorter name, the Two Plus Four Agreement. The two were West Germany and East Germany. The four were…
- Anglo-German Naval AgreementThe Anglo-German Naval Agreement brought Adolf Hitler what he called "the happiest day of his life". The treaty was an arms limitation pact between the United Kingdom and Germany, signed in London in 1935. On paper it dealt with the dry…
- New STARTNew START's end leaves the US and Russia with no binding nuclear limits for the first time since the early 1970s.
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear WeaponsNorth Korea became the first state ever to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in April 2003. It had joined in 1985.
- Treaty of VersaillesFrance chose the Hall of Mirrors for the Versailles signing because Germany's empire began there.
- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces TreatyReagan and Gorbachev signed a 1987 treaty to destroy a whole class of nuclear missiles.
- Antarctic Treaty SystemTwelve rival nations signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, the first arms control deal of the Cold War.
- Partial Nuclear Test Ban TreatyIn 1957, underground nuclear tests could not be told apart from earthquakes. That complicated a full test ban.