Why Did the Cold War Start?
Why did the Cold War start? How the U.S.-Soviet alliance broke down from Yalta and Potsdam to the Truman Doctrine, Berlin Airlift, NATO and the Soviet bomb.
1946 to 1991
The Cold War
On This Day in This Era
Events from 1946 to 1991, by date.
- January 10, 1946The United Nations General Assembly held its first session in London.
- February 22, 1946George Kennan sent his Long Telegram from Moscow, shaping the U.S. strategy of containment.
- November 29, 1947The UN General Assembly votes to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
- February 25, 1948Communists took control of Czechoslovakia's government.
- December 9, 1948The UN General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention by unanimous vote.
- December 10, 1948The UN General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- January 26, 1950India becomes a republic as its new constitution takes effect.
- February 9, 1950Senator Joseph McCarthy claims in a Wheeling speech that Communists work inside the State Department.
- November 26, 1950Chinese troops launched massive counterattacks against UN forces in Korea.
- February 6, 1952Princess Elizabeth becomes queen when her father, King George VI, dies in his sleep.
- February 23, 1954Children in Pittsburgh received the first mass injections of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine.
- January 7, 1955Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform on the Metropolitan Opera's main stage.