Cold War
About this set
Created by:
5reided on May 15, 2011
Subjects:
world studies, world history, social studies, europe, european history, history, cold war
Description:
Terms and concepts relating to the Cold War.
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26 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Potsdam Conference | The final wartime meeting of the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union in July 1945. |
| NATO | An international organization created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security. |
| Warsaw Pact | Mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe in July 1955. |
| Iron Curtain | Physical and ideological division between the NATO countries and the USSR. |
| Truman Doctrine | President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology. |
| Marshall Plan | A United States program providing $13 billion in economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe. |
| Berlin Airlift | 1948 operation that supplied food and fuel to citizens of west Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin. |
| domino theory | Idea that, if one country falls to communism, neighboring countries will also fall. |
| policy of containment | A plan to keep something, such as communism, within its existing geographical boundaries and prevent further aggressive moves. |
| Sputnik | A Russian satellite that was the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth. |
| U-2 Spy Plane incident | 1960 event where an American spy plane and its pilot were shot down and recovered by the Soviet Union. |
| Bay of Pigs invasion | 1961 failed invasion of Cuba when an outnumbered force of 1,200 Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, landed at the Bay of Pigs, attempting to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. |
| Space Race | Competition between the USSR and the United States for supremacy in outer space exploration, resulting in political tensions and technological advances. |
| Apollo 11 | July 1969 mission using Niel Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin to fulfill John F. Kennedy's goal to reach the Moon before the Soviet Union. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | October 1962 confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States after the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, immediately resulting in an American blockade, but later resulting in an agreement to remove American missiles from Turkey and to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba. |
| Berlin Wall | Barrier constructed by East Germany starting in 1961 cutting off West Berlin from East Berlin and East Germany, before it was dismantled in 1989. |
| Strategic Arms Limitation Talks | Negotiations and treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union starting in 1969 designed to limit both countries' stock of nuclear weapons. |
| détente | A phase of relaxed tensions and improved relations between two adversaries. |
| Strategic Defense Initiative | Reagan's 1983 proposal to create an elaborate ground- and space-based system to protect the United States from nuclear missiles. "Star Wars," as it was called, was widely criticized as impossible. |
| Ronald Reagan | 40th President of the United States who supported anti-Communism and ordered a massive military buildup before negotiating with Gorbachev in 1987. |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms. |
| perestroika | Mikhail Gorbachev's plan to reform the Soviet Union by reconstructing its economy. |
| glastnost | Program led by Gorbachev to allow more political freedom. |
| fall of communism | ... |
| reunification of Germany | ... |
| breakup of the Soviet Union | ... |
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