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...
Georgy Malenkov Resigns
In 1953, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. However, at the insistence of the rest of the Presidium, he relinquished control over the party apparatus in exchange for...
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...
First Taiwan Strait Crisis
In August 1954 the Communist People's Republic of China attacked several islands located a few miles from mainland China in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the Nationalist Republic of China. Wikipedia In January 1955, the Formosa Resolution was...
Fall of French Indochina
https://youtu.be/ZMPNY9w8OmQ In May 1954 communist Viet Minh forces won a decisive victory over the French colonial army in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. The war ended shortly afterward with signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords in which France agreed to withdraw its...
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...
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...
Joseph Stalin Dies
In March 1953 Joseph Stalin died of a stroke at his personal dacha near Moscow. After a state funeral, his body was interred along with Vladimir Lenin in a mausoleum within the Kremlin. Like America's President Roosevelt, Stalin's health had deteriorated towards the...
Nikita Khrushchev
After Joseph Stalin’s death in March 1953 and the execution of the powerful state security chief, Lavrenty Beria—which Khrushchev engineered—Nikita Khrushchev engaged in a power struggle with Georgy Malenkov, who was Stalin’s heir apparent....
MiG-15 Pilot Flees to South Korea
https://youtu.be/bFzEp0vuC7Y Operation Moolah - in 1953 U.S forces in Korea offered $100,00 and political asylum to the first pilot who defected to South Korea with a combat-capable MiG-15. In September 1953, a MiG- 15 piloted by Senior Lt. No Kum-Sok of the North...
Armistice Ends Korean War
The armistice signed on July 27, 1953, formally ended the war in Korea. North and South Korea remained separate and occupied almost the same territory they had when the war began. https://youtu.be/K1otXThthbk
Riots in East Germany
In June 1953 a strike by construction workers in East Berlin against Soviet-inspired work standards, evolved into a series of demonstrations against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies across the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)....
Battle of Old Baldy
https://youtu.be/TEgZ3lqWzZQ The Battle of Old Baldy refers to a series of five engagements for Hill 266 in west-central Korea. They occurred over a period of 10 months in 1952–1953, though there was also vicious fighting both before and after these...
First Indochina War – 1947-1954
https://youtu.be/8kgcUFU5_eA After WWII, the decolonization of French Indochina left the region divided into four independent states: North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In September 1945, a provisional government in Hanoi...
Truman Declares a National Emergency
On December 15, 1951, U.S. President Harry Truman gave a radio address from the White House and announced that he would proclaim a national emergency "because of great danger created by the Soviet Union."
Chinese Treatment of Prisoners of War
The issue of Chinese treatment of UN prisoners of war is controversial. Cold war attitudes were often reflected in early reports which had limited actual data. On occasion, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was reported to provide emergency medical treatment for...
Radio Moscow
https://youtu.be/cznCttle760 Radio Moscow's interval signal. Radio Moscow (Pадио Москва) was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993. After the fall of the Soviet Union It was...
Rosenbergs sentenced to death for espionage
https://youtu.be/5iUyF3YttgA Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and brought to trial on March 6, 1951; On March 29 they were found guilty, and on April 5,1951 the couple was sentenced to death. https://youtu.be/7lfJC5bx3Us...
UN Forces Launch Major Counter-Offensive
https://youtu.be/hnlFxo3vUGA On January 25, 1950, after a series of cautious reconnaissance advances, the U.S. 8th Army, under the command of Gen Matthew Ridgway, initiated Operation Thunderbolt, a major attack against Chinese and North Korean forces near the Han...
Seoul City Sue – North Korean Propagandist
Anna Wallis Suh (1900–1969), nicknamed "Seoul City Sue," was a Methodist missionary, educator, and North Korean propaganda radio announcer broadcasting to United States forces during the Korean War. After joining the...
French Communism 1950
https://youtu.be/V3dHS3xirhU The French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français- PCF) was banned in 1939 at the outbreak of WWII when it opposed the war. Since the USSR and Nazi Germany had a neutrality pact, the PCF may have actually sabotaged arms...
UCLA Red Cell
With the rise of anti-Communist rhetoric reminiscent of the post-WWI Great Red Scare, the University of California system was accused in the late 1940s of harboring Communist infiltrators. In 1949 the Regents of the University adopted a policy requiring all faculty...