Cold War - Key Dates

Question 1

When was the Yalta Conference (just after the war):

Answer 1

February 1945.

Question 2

When was the Potsdam Conference:

Answer 2

July 1945.

Question 3

When was Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech:

Answer 3

March 1946.

Question 4

When was the ‘Truman Doctrine’ speech given:

Answer 4

12th March 1947.

Question 5

When was The Marshall Plan (the practical outcome to the Truman Doctrine) carried out?

Answer 5

USA gave $12.7billion dollars of aid between 1948 and 1952.

Question 6

When was Cominform (the communist information Bureau), which was a political organisation, set up?

Answer 6

22nd September 1947.

Question 7

Comecon(the council for mutual economic assistance):

Answer 7

1949.

Question 8

The Berlin Blockade:

Answer 8

1948-1949.

Question 9

When was Bizonia in Germany created?

Answer 9

1947.

Question 10

When was Trizonia created in Germany?

Answer 10

March 1948. In June of the same year, The USA, Britain and France, who had joined their parts together, created a single currency, the Deutschmark, to give Trizonia economic unity.

Question 11

When did Operation Vittles, better known as the Berlin Airlift, begin to supply necessities into parts of Berlin?

Answer 11

25th June 1948.

Question 12

When was the peak month of Operation Vittles, better know as the Berlin Airlift?

Answer 12

January 1949, when no fewer than 170,000 tonnes of supplies were sent into Berlin by Western aircraft.

Question 13

When did Operation Vittles, better known as the Berlin Airlift, finish and the Berlin Blockade was lifted?

Answer 13

9th May 1949.

Question 14

When did the USA, Britain and France permit their zones of Germany to come together as a state known as the Federal Republic of Germany?(It was very soon, just 3 days, after the Berlin Blockade was lifted).

Answer 14

23rd May 1949.

Question 15

When did Stalin create the German Democratic Republic out of the USSR controlled part of Germany?

Answer 15

October 1949.

Question 16

When did USA, Britain, France, and nine other Western countries join together in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)?

Answer 16

April 1949.

Question 17

In what year did the German Federal Republic (West Germany) join NATO?

Answer 17

May 1955.

Question 18

When was the Warsaw Pact, the communist equivalent to NATO, formed to create a communist defensive military alliance?

Answer 18

1955 - Within a week of West Germany joining NATO.

Question 19

What year was the Hungarian Uprising?

Answer 19

1956.

Question 20

When was the Berlin Ultimatum issued?

Answer 20

27th November 1958.

Question 21

Between what years were a series of talks held to solve the ‘Berlin problem’ caused the Berlin Ultimatum to be issued?

Answer 21

1959 and 1961. Four meetings:

• Geneva, May 1959.
• Camp David, September 1959.
• Paris, May 1960.
• Vienna, June 1961.

Question 22

When was the Berlin wall put up to stop the skilled workers moving from East Berlin to the better conditions in the capitalist West Berlin?

Answer 22

On the night of the 12th August 1961, East German troops built a barbed wire fence around Berlin and between East and West Berlin. Soon, work on a concrete wall began, which would stretch 165km.

Question 23

When was the ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ stand off at one of the Berlin wall’s checkpoints?

Answer 23

October 1961.

Question 24

When did Kennedy visit Berlin and give a famous speech, which included him saying “Ich bin ein Berliner”?

Answer 24

1963.

Question 25

When did Eisenhower the USA break of diplomatic relations with Cuba?

Answer 25

January 1961.

Question 26

When was the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by American-trained Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro?

Answer 26

17th April 1961.

Question 27

When did Khrushchev publicly announce that he would provide arms for Cuba?

Answer 27

September 1961.

Question 28

When were the ‘Thirteen Days’ of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 28

16th October-28th October 1962.

Question 29

(Consequences of Cuban Missile Crisis) When was a direct communications line set up between Washington and Moscow, know as the ‘hotline’?

Answer 29

June 1963.

Question 30

(Consequences of Cuban Missile Crisis) When was the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by the USA, the UK and the USSR, to prohibit nuclear weapons being tested in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere?

Answer 30

August 1963.

Question 31

When was the Outer Space Treaty signed?

Answer 31

1967.

Question 32

When did the events of the Prague Spring start and finish?

Answer 32

January 1968 until the Soviet invasion on 21st August 1968.

Question 33

(During Prague Spring) When were 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops sent to invade Czechoslovakia and end the ‘Prague Spring’?

Answer 33

20th August 1968.

Question 34

(Consequence of the Prague Spring) When was the Brezhnev Doctrine created?

Answer 34

26th September 1968.

Question 35

(Features of Détente) When was the SALT 1 agreement?

Answer 35

May 1972.

Question 36

(Features of Détente) When was the Helsinki Accords agreement?

Answer 36

August 1975 (talks about it began in 1973).

Question 37

(Features of Détente) When was the SALT 2 agreement?

Answer 37

Talks of a second SALT continued until 18th August 1979 (although the agreement did not become ratified).

Question 38

When was the joint superpower space mission,called the Pollo-Soyuz mission?

Answer 38

1975.

Question 39

What year did the soviet union invade Afghanistan?

Answer 39

1979.

Question 40

What year does the USA boycott the Moscow Olympic Games?

Answer 40

1980 (over 60 nations supported the US boycott).

Question 41

When was the Carter Doctrine created?

Answer 41

January 1980.

Question 42

When did Ronal Reagan begin presidency?

Answer 42

1981.

Question 43

When was the period of tense and hostile relations between the two superpowers that is often referred to as the ‘Second Cold War’?

Answer 43

In the 1980’s, mainly whilst Reagan was president, although it had already begun whilst Carter was president.

Question 44

When did Reagan announce the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) or ‘Star Wars’ as it was popularly called?

Answer 44

1983.

Question 45

When did Gorbachev become leader of the Soviet Union?

Answer 45

March 1985 (Brezhnev died in 1982 and his successor Andropov died in 1984 and Cherenkov followed and died a year later).

Question 46

When was the Chernobyl disaster?

Answer 46

1986.

Question 47

When was the Geneva Summit (one of the five summits when Gorbachev became leader)?

Answer 47

1985.

Question 48

When was the Reykjavik Summit (one of the five summits when Gorbachev became leader)?

Answer 48

1986.

Question 49

When was the Washington Summit (one of the five summits when Gorbachev became leader)?

Answer 49

1987.

Question 50

When was the Moscow Summit (one of the five summits when Gorbachev became leader)?

Answer 50

1988.

Question 51

When was the Malta Summit (one of the five summits when Gorbachev became leader)?

Answer 51

1989.

Question 52

When did Gorbachev announce that the Brezhnev Doctrine would be given up (which led to satellite states being able to choose how they were governed)?

Answer 52

Late 1980s.

Question 53

When was the fall of the Berlin wall?

Answer 53

9th November 1989.

Question 54

When was the end of the Warsaw Pact?

Answer 54

Military co-operation between the member states ended in early 1990 and the Pact was formally dissolved in July 1991. The iron curtain and the two armed alliances on either side of Europe had now ended, meaning the end to the Cold War.

Question 55

When did Gorbachev resign as Soviet leader?

Answer 55

25 December 1991.

Question 56

When did the Soviet Union dissolve/break up?

Answer 56

After Gorbachev’s resignation on the 25th December 1991, his resignation was immediately followed by the break-up pf the Soviet Union.