USSR Explodes Tsar Bomba
In October 1961 the USSR exploded the Tsar Bomba AN602, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested.
Face-off at Checkpoint Charlie
1961 US and Soviet Tanks Faceoff in Berlin
Civil War in Laos
In association with civil wars in Cambodia and Vietnam, the Laotian Civil War was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from May 1959 to December 1975. Both sides received heavy support in a proxy war...
JFK Announces Peace Corps Formation
President Kennedy proposed the Peace Corps as a means to improve America's global image and leadership in the Cold War. Established within three months of Kennedy's 1960 election, the Peace Corps garnered both bipartisan and popular support, particularly...
Patrice Lumumba Assasinated
In January 1961 Patrice Lumumba, the 1st premier Congo, was murdered after 67 days in office. The US and Joseph Mobutu (Congolese politician and military officer) were implicated but no conclusive proof has emerged. In 2000 the Belgium Parliament opened an...
Eisenhower’s “Military-Industrial Complex” Speech
As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defense spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War arms race. Nonetheless, the American military services and the defense industry had...
Eisenhower Visits India
https://youtu.be/vAcxBX225kw?t=6 In December 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower visited India and met with President Rajenda Prasad and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In an address to the Indian Parliament, Eisenhower said: “ We who are free, and who prize our...
Eisenhower Warns of Communist Threat
Text of January 1958 address: The threat to our safety, and to the hope of a peaceful world, can be simply stated. It is communist imperialism. This threat is not something imagined by critics of the Soviets. Soviet spokesmen, from the beginning, have publicly and...
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line was the northernmost of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska. Designed to provide enough warning time of a nuclear attack to enable launching an effective counterattack, the DEW line was placed far north of the joint...
Eisenhower Doctrine
https://youtu.be/1N1_JGG4XX8 In January 1957 President Eisenhower declared that US forces could be deployed to protect the territorial integrity and political independence of nations from overt armed aggression by any nation controlled by international communism....
US Hydrogen Bomb Dropped Over Bikini Atoll
In May 1956 the United States conducted the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb. Dropped from a B-52 bomber over the island of Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the successful test indicated that hydrogen bombs were viable airborne weapons...
Big Four Meeting in Geneva Reduces International Tension
https://youtu.be/1KURFzVpqm4 The stated mission of the November 1955 Geneva summit was to reduce international tensions between the leaders of "Big Four" nations France, Great Britain, USA and USSR. The world leaders discussed issues on security,...
President Eisenhower’s Open Skies Proposal Rejected
https://youtu.be/4DH3c9WJMQU The concept of "mutual aerial observation" initially proposed to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin at the Geneva Conference of 1955 by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was promptly rejected by the USSR...
Britain Decides to Develop Thermonuclear Weapons
https://youtu.be/0RNwR1Sewh8 Great Britain successfully tested an atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane in October 1952, becoming the world's third nuclear power. However, in November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful...
Assassination Attempt on Zhou Enlai
https://youtu.be/IWx6Q_qT9bU In April 1955, the Kashmir Princess, a chartered aircraft owned by Air India was damaged in midair by a bomb explosion and crashed into the South China Sea while en route to Jakarta, Indonesia. Sixteen of...
First US Advisors Sent to South Vietnam
https://youtu.be/qtaX8MIimwE After WWII, American Cold War policy was based on the "domino theory”— if one country fell to communism, the surrounding countries would fall, like dominoes. The Eisenhower administration was worried that the potential fall of Vietnam...
West Germany joins North Atlantic Treaty Organization
https://youtu.be/0rICHFt7Gg4 In 1949, the Americans, British, and French combined their zones of occupation in West Germany to establish the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). The Soviets responded by forming the Deutsche Demokratische Republik...
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – SEATO
https://youtu.be/6_Hb8IDU4Tk Wikipedia In September 1954 the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although most of the SEATO member states were...
Coup D’état in Guatemala
https://youtu.be/uVkthJcKQxg In June 1954, Operation PBSuccess (a covert operation directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) orchestrated the invasion of Guatemala from Honduras by a force of Guatemalan mercenaries. The successful coup d'état deposed...
Eisenhower Describes Domino Theory
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the domino theory during an April 1954, news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina. The geopolitical theory stated that if one country fell to a communist takeover, the surrounding...
Edward R. Murrow vs. Joseph McCarthy
Edward Roscoe Murrow was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent who first gained radio prominence with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe during WWII. In the spring of 1954 the US Senate held a series of hearings to investigate...
USS Nautilus – First Nuclear-Powered Submarine
Named after both Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the WWII submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) ,the new nuclear-powered Nautilus was launched in 1954. Because the USS Nautilus nuclear propulsion allowed prolonged submersion...
Nationwide Atom Bomb Drills
The development of the H-bomb committed the United States to an arms race with the Soviet Union. Despite the specter of nuclear holocaust, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied to build ever more powerful nuclear weapons. The Federal Civil Defense...
Atoms for Peace
https://youtu.be/CQ0bd4cShs8 In December 1953 , Preident Eisenhower delivered his "Atoms for Peace" address to the UN. He called on both the US and Soviet Union to abandon their nuclear arsenals. The "Atoms for Peace" program spread nuclear technology to nations that...
Iranian Coup d’état
https://youtu.be/VlbRUwgASAQ In August 1953 a coup d'état overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The coup was...