The Cold War was the long period of political and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies. It began to take shape in 1947, when President Harry Truman pledged American support for countries threatened by communism in what became known as the Truman Doctrine, and it was marked by the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Blockade, the founding of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and the division of Europe by what Winston Churchill had called an iron curtain. The two superpowers never fought each other directly but competed through an arms race, space exploration and proxy wars such as those in Korea and Vietnam. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world close to nuclear war. The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.
Before and after
- 23 February 1947Founding of International Organization for Standardization
- from 27 February 1947 to 16 May 1947228 Incident
- 12 March 1947Founding of Ferrari
- 12 March 1947Birth of Mitt Romney
- from 12 March 1947 to 25 December 1991Cold War
- 21 March 1947Birth of Ali Abdullah Saleh
- 25 March 1947Birth of Elton John
- 5 April 1947Birth of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
- 7 April 1947Death of Henry Ford
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 3 April 1948 to 1 December 1951Marshall Plan
- 10 December 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 26 July 1953Cuban Revolution
- from 14 October 1962 to 28 October 1962Cuban Missile Crisis
- 26 December 1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union
- 24 February 2022Full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.