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Soviet Union–United States relations

  • Cold WarOn the 5th of March 1946, former British prime minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech in Fulton, Missouri, that would define the opening chapter of…
  • Baruch PlanOn the 14th of June 1946, Bernard Baruch stood before the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to present a document that would reshape global history.
  • Four PolicemenFranklin D. Roosevelt first voiced the idea of a global police force in August 1941 during his initial meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
  • Communist Party USAThe Communist Party USA emerged from the left wing of the Socialist Party of America in 1919. This new organization sought to establish socialism through…
  • Kennan InstituteThe Kennan Institute opened its doors in 1974 to study the Soviet Union. George F. Kennan, an American diplomat and historian, helped establish this…
  • Reagan DoctrinePresident James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to establish a new boundary for American foreign policy. Theodore Roosevelt followed with his own…
  • Outer Space TreatyThe Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957. This first artificial satellite changed the geopolitical landscape overnight.
  • Truman DoctrineIn October 1944, British and Greek forces landed in Greece following the gradual withdrawal of Axis occupational forces from the country.
  • Evil Empire speechAnthony R. Dolan, Ronald Reagan's chief speechwriter in 1983, coined the phrase evil empire for the president to use. Dolan had included similar language in…
  • 1980 Summer Olympics boycottThe Western governments first considered boycotting the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, discussing it at a the 20th of…
  • Able Archer 83In May 1981, a closed-session meeting of senior KGB officers and Soviet leaders took place. General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman Yuri Andropov…
  • Korean Air Lines Flight 007On the morning of the 1st of September 1983, a Boeing 747-230B jet airliner departed from Anchorage International Airport in Alaska.
  • Stalin NoteOn the 10th of March 1952, Andrei Gromyko delivered a diplomatic note to representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in Berlin.
  • Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to GermanyOn the 1st of August 1945, the Potsdam Agreement established provisional terms for governing Germany after World War II.
  • Miracle on IceThe Soviet Union entered the Lake Placid games as the heavy favorite, having won four consecutive gold medals dating back to the 1964 games.
  • Space RaceThe Space Race began as a direct extension of the Cold War's nuclear arms race. Following World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union acquired…
  • Nuclear arms raceIn early 1940, a French Deuxième Bureau agent arranged for the purchase of the entire Norwegian stock of heavy water, 187 liters.
  • NSC 68A 66-page top secret policy paper titled United States Objectives and Programs for National Security arrived on President Harry S.
  • Tear down this wall!At 2:00 p.m. on the 12th of June 1987, Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, shielded from East Berlin by two panes of bulletproof…
  • 1960 U-2 incidentIn July 1958, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested permission from Pakistani Prime Minister Feroze Khan Noon to establish a secret intelligence…
  • Berlin Crisis of 1961By 1958, East German leader Walter Ulbricht struggled to maintain control of a state facing severe economic hardships. War reparations demanded by the Soviet…
  • Jackson–Vanik amendmentSenator Henry Jackson of Washington drafted the amendment in mid-1972. He introduced it to the 92nd Congress on the 4th of October 1972.
  • X ArticleOn the evening of the 9th of February 1946, Joseph Stalin stood before a packed audience at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. He spoke for nearly two hours about…
  • Elbe DayAt 11:30am on the 25th of April 1945, a small boat cut through the muddy waters of the River Elbe. Inside sat First Lieutenant Albert Kotzebue and three men…
  • Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyAllen Dulles formed the National Committee for a Free Europe in New York City during 1949. This front organization created Radio Free Europe to target Soviet…
  • Sputnik crisisIn the early 1950s, Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that the US held the advantage in nuclear capability.
  • We will bury youNikita Khrushchev stood before Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow on the 18th of November 1956. The room held envoys from twelve NATO…
  • Strategic Defense InitiativeOn the 23rd of March 1983, President Ronald Reagan stood before a national television audience and declared that nuclear weapons must be rendered impotent…
  • Turkish Straits crisisThe Dardanelles and Bosporus form two sequential gateways between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. These waterways served as a vital trade route for Turkey…
  • Lend-LeaseThe 1930s began with one of the world's greatest economic depressions. The later recession of 1937, 1938 was also one of the worst of the 20th century.
  • Persian CorridorThe Persian Corridor carried 45 percent of all American Lend-Lease aid shipped to the Soviet Union during World War II. That works out to 7.9 million long…
  • Samantha SmithNovember 1982 marked a turning point in global tension when Yuri Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union.
  • Apollo–SoyuzOn the 19th of April, 1971, the USSR launched its first piloted orbital space station, Salyut 1. Just months prior, the United States had sent Apollo 14 to…
  • Partial Nuclear Test Ban TreatyThe Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll in 1954 released a yield of 15 megatons, more than double the expected power. Radioactive particles spread over…