Cold War¶

Timeline¶

1945¶

4 - 11 Feb: Yalta Conference
Feb - May: Operation Sunrise
12 Apr: Roosevelt dies; Truman succeeds him as President of the United States
25 Apr: Elbe Day
- American and Soviet troops link up at Elbe River, cutting Germany in two
3 May: German rocket scientist Wernhern von Braun and his team surrender to US forces
- Start of Operation Paperclip (1945 - 1959)
8 May: Signing of German Instrument of Surrender
26 Jun: 50 governments met at San Francisco and signed the UN Charter
- Established the United Nations (UN)
28 Jun: Establishment of Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland
16 Jul: First detonation of nuclear bomb, the Trinity Test, was conducted by the US Army
17 Jul - 2 Aug: Potsdam Conference
6 Aug: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima
8 Aug: Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria
- Start of Soviet-Japanese War
9 Aug: Atomic bombing of Nagasaki
12 Aug: Smyth Report
- Official US account of atomic bomb development
9 - 20 Aug: Soviet invasion of Manchuria
15 Aug: Jewel Voice Broadcast
- Japan accepts terms of the Potsdam Declaration
28 Aug: Occupation of Japan begins
2 Sep: Signing of Japanese Instrument of Surrender
5 Sep: Defection of Igor Gouzenko
Nov: Establishment of pro-Soviet Azerbaijan People's Government and Republic of Mahabad in Iran
Beginning of Iran Crisis (1945 - 1946)

1946¶

6 Jan: North Vietnamese legislative election
- Resulted in victory of Communist-led Viet Minh
11 Jan: Declaration of People's Republic of Albania
19 Jan: Houma Campaign begins
- Resumption of Chinese Civil War (1946 - 1950)
22 Jan: The Long Telegram arrives in the US
31 Jan: 1946 Yugoslav Consitution
- Modelled after Soviet Union with 6 constituent republics
1 Feb: Kingdom of Hungary dissolved
- Replaced by Second Hungarian Republic
March: Resumption of Greek Civil War (1946 - 1949)
2 Mar: Deadline for withdrawal of troops from Iran
- Soviet Union ignores the deadline
5 Mar: Churchill's Sinews of Peace address -Warns of a descent of an Iron Curtain across Europe
1 - 25 Jul: Operation Crossroads
- First detonations of nuclear bombs since atomic bombing of Nagasaki
4 Jul: The Philippines gains independence from the US
- Continues fighting communist Huk rebels
6 Sep: Restatement of Policy on Germany speech
- Rejected previously proposed Morgenthau Plan
- US to maintain military presence in Europe indefinitely
8 Sep: Bulgarian republic referendum
- Held in presence of Soviet army
- 97% vote for republic
- Viewed by Western countries as biased
24 Sep: Clifford-Elsey Report presented to Truman
- First mention of the concept of Containment
27 Sep: Novikov Telegram published
- USSR: US is "striving for world supremacy"
23 Nov: Haiphong Massacre
- Start of First Indochina War (1946 - 1954)
15 Dec: USSR withdraws from Iran
- End of Iran Crisis (1945 - 1946)

1947¶

Jan - Feb: Winter of 1946-47
- Affected the rest of Europe besides the UK
- Was said to be a factor in the introduction of Marshall Plan
1 Jan: American and British zones in Germany unite to form Bizone
19 Jan: Establishment of the Polish People's Republic
17 Feb: Voice of America begins radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
4 Mar: Treaty of Dunkirk signed between France and the UK
- Provides mutual assistance in the event of attack
12 Mar: Truman proclaims the Truman Doctrine in an address to Congress
- Played up on the threat of growing Communist threat
- Would counter Soviet geopolitical expansion worldwide
16 Apr: Bernard Baruch describes the tensions between the Soviet Union and the US as a "Cold War"
31 May: Ferenc Nagy, the Prime Minister of Hungary is forced to resign and go into exile by the "salami tactics" of the Hungarian Communist Party
5 Jun: US Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe
26 Jul: Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law
- CIA, National Security Council, Dept of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff created
Sep: The Soviet Union forms the Communist Information Bureau (COMINFORM)
14 Nov: UN passes UN General Assembly Resolution 112
- Called for withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea, free elections in Korea and the creation of a UN commission to unify the Korean peninsula
30 Dec: King Michael I of Romania forced to abdicate
- Monarchy abolished, replaced by People's Republic of Romania

1948¶

22 Jan: British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin proposes the formation of a Western Union against the Soviet Union
1 Feb: The Soviet Union begins to jam the Voice of America broadcasts
25 Feb: 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état
- Communist Party of Czechoslovakia assumed control over government with Soviet backing
- Loss of last democracy in Eastern Europe
- Completion of a Soviet bloc and the partition of Europe
- Unified Western countries against the Communist bloc
- Accelerated construction of a West European alliance
- Reduced American public opposition towards the Marshall Plan
- Sparked lobbying for substantial rise in US military budget
- Renewal of American selective service
17 Mar: Signing of the Treaty of Brussels establishing the Western Union
- Signatories: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom
- Provides for economic, social and cultural collaboration and collective self-defence
3 Apr: Truman signs the Marshall Plan into law
16 Apr: The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) is formed to administer the Marshall Plan
- Predecessor organization of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
18 Apr: 1948 Italian general election
- Heavily influenced by confrontation between the Soviet Union and the US
- The US State Department and the CIA were involved in covert political warfare
- The CIA would continue to influence the Italian political situation for at least the next 24 years
30 Apr: The Organization of American States is founded
- Members to fight communism in the western hemisphere
- Adoption of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the world's first general human rights instrument
14 May: The State of Israel is formed
14 May: The RAND Corporation is established
- Offers research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces
16 Jun: First shots of the Malayan Emergency were fired in Perak, Malaysia
18 Jun: Start of Malayan Emergency (1948 - 1960)
- The state of emergency is declared in the Malayan Union, due to a Communist insurgency
24 Jun: Start of Berlin Blockade (1948 - 1949)
26 Jun: Start of Berlin airlift (1948 - 1949)
28 Jun: Start of Yugoslav-Soviet split and Informbiro period in Yugoslavia (1948 - 1955)
- Yugoslavia expelled from CONINFORM
20 Jul: Truman issues second peacetime military draft in the United States
20 Jul: Twelve CPUSA leaders arrested and charged under the Alien Registration Act
15 Aug: The Republic of Korea was formally established
18 Aug: The Danube Commission is created by the Belgrade Convention of 1948
- Members: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, the USSR and Yugoslavia
- Replaced previous commissions that had included non-riparian powers
25 Aug: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) holds their first-ever televised congressional hearing
9 Sep: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed
10 Oct: The R-1 missile becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space
17 Dec: The Finnish Security Police is established to remove communist leadership from its predecessor, the State Police