1917 |
April |
US entry into World War I |
|
November |
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia |
1918 |
January |
Wilson’s Fourteen Points |
|
March |
Treaty of Brest Litovsk |
|
November |
Armistice with Germany |
1919 |
January |
Opening of Paris Peace Conference |
|
March |
Establishment of Comintern (Communist International) |
|
June |
Treaty of Versailles |
1922 |
April |
Stalin named general secretary of the Communist Party |
|
|
Genoa Conference opens (–May 1922) |
|
|
Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and Soviet Russia |
|
December |
Establishment of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) |
1924 |
January |
Death of Lenin |
1929 |
October |
Beginning of the Great Depression |
1931 |
September |
Japan invades Manchuria |
1932 |
November |
Franklin Roosevelt elected US president |
1933 |
January |
Hitler assumes power in Germany |
March |
German rearmament |
|
|
June |
Anglo-German naval agreement |
|
August |
US Neutrality Act (extended in 1936, 1937, and 1939) |
|
October |
Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia) |
1936 |
March |
Germany reoccupies the Rhineland |
|
July |
Outbreak of Spanish civil war (–April 1939) |
|
October |
Rome-Berlin Axis |
|
November |
Anti-Comintern Pact (Germany-Japan) |
1937 |
July |
Japan invades China |
|
November |
Italy joins Anti-Comintern Pact |
1938 |
September |
Munich Conference |
1939 |
August |
Nazi-Soviet Pact |
|
September |
Outbreak of World War II in Europe |
|
November |
USSR war with Finland (–March 1940) |
1940 |
June |
Fall of France |
|
July |
Battle of Britain begins (–October 1940) |
|
November |
Roosevelt reelected to unprecedented third term |
1941 |
March |
US Lend Lease Act ends neutrality policy |
|
June |
German invasion of Soviet Union |
|
August |
Atlantic Charter |
|
December |
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; Germany declares war on United States |
1942 |
January |
Declaration of the United Nations |
1943 |
January |
Casablanca Conference |
|
May |
Stalin dissolves Comintern |
|
October |
Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers |
|
November |
Cairo Conference; Tehran Conference |
|
December |
Second Cairo Conference |
1944 |
July |
Bretton Woods Conference |
|
August |
Dumbarton Oaks Conference |
|
October |
Churchill-Stalin meeting in Moscow |
|
December |
Civil war erupts in Greece (–October 1949) |
January |
Stalin recognizes Polish Committee of National Liberation (PCNL) as the provisional government of Poland |
|
|
February |
Yalta Conference |
|
April |
Death of Roosevelt |
|
May |
World War II ends in Europe |
|
June |
San Francisco Conference approves UN Charter |
|
July |
First successful atomic bomb test in New Mexico |
|
|
Potsdam Conference opens (–August) |
|
August |
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki |
|
|
Red Army moves into Manchuria |
|
|
World War II ends in Asia |
|
November |
Nuremberg trials begin (–October 1946) |
|
December |
Bretton Woods agreement signed by twenty-seven governments; USSR withdraws |
1946 |
February |
Stalin election address to USSR |
|
|
Kennan “Long Telegram” |
|
March |
Churchill “Iron Curtain” speech, Fulton, Missouri |
|
|
Iran crisis (–May 1946) |
|
July |
Civil war in China (–October 1949) |
|
September |
Byrnes speech affirming US commitment to Germany’s revival |
1947 |
February |
Peace treaties signed with Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, and Romania |
|
March |
Truman doctrine: aid to Greece and Turkey |
|
June |
Marshall Plan announced |
|
July |
“Mr. X” (George Kennan) article in Foreign Affairs |
|
|
Soviet withdrawal from Marshall Plan |
|
August |
India declares independence |
|
September |
Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) established |
|
November |
UN partition of Palestine |
|
|
London Conference of Foreign Ministers fails to agree on peace treaties with Germany and Austria (–December 1947) |
1948 |
February |
Coup in Czechoslovakia brings communist government to power |
|
April |
Soviet Union withdraws from Allied Control Council for Germany |
|
May |
Israel declares independence |
|
June |
US Selective Service Act reinstates draft |
|
|
Berlin blockade (–May 1949) |
|
|
Stalin expels Tito from Cominform |
|
December |
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by UN General Assembly |
April |
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) founded |
|
|
May |
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) established in West Germany |
|
September |
Truman announces successful Soviet atomic bomb test |
|
October |
People’s Republic of China established |
|
|
German Democratic Republic (GDR) established in East Germany |
1950 |
January |
Dean Acheson excludes Korea and Taiwan from US defense perimeter in Asia |
|
February |
Sino-Soviet Treaty |
|
April |
NSC-68 defines US Cold War policy |
|
June |
North Korea invades South Korea; UN resolution calls for an international force |
|
September |
UN troops cross thirty-eighth parallel in Korea |
|
November |
Chinese troops enter Korean War |
1952 |
November |
Dwight David Eisenhower elected US president |
1953 |
March |
Death of Stalin |
|
June |
Soviet troops crush uprising in East Germany |
|
July |
Armistice signed ending Korean War |
|
August |
CIA-led coup in Iran |
|
September |
Nikita Khrushchev becomes first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union |
1954 |
May |
French defeat at Diên Biên Phu |
|
|
Geneva Conference on Indochina (–July 1954) |
|
June |
CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala |
|
September |
Formation of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) |
1955 |
April |
Bandung Conference |
|
May |
West Germany joins NATO |
|
|
Warsaw Pact established |
|
|
Austrian State Treaty |
|
July |
Geneva summit meeting |
1956 |
February |
Khrushchev speech before Twentieth Party Congress denouncing Stalin |
|
April |
Cominform dissolved |
|
June |
Anti-Soviet protests in Poland (–October 1956) |
|
October |
Revolt in Hungary and Soviet suppression (–November 1956) |
|
|
Suez crisis (–November 1956) |
|
November |
Eisenhower reelected |
January |
Eisenhower doctrine to defend Middle East against communism |
|
|
March |
Treaty of Rome creating European Economic Community |
|
October |
Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first earth satellite |
1958 |
November |
Berlin crisis (–August 1959) |
1959 |
January |
Fidel Castro overthrows Batista regime in Cuba |
|
September |
Khrushchev visits United States |
1960 |
May |
Paris summit meeting collapses over U-2 incident |
|
November |
John F. Kennedy elected US president |
|
December |
UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples |
1961 |
April |
Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin becomes first man to fly in space |
|
|
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba |
|
June |
Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna |
|
August |
Berlin Wall erected |
|
October |
Sino-Soviet split becomes public at Twenty-Second Soviet Communist Party Congress |
1962 |
October |
Cuban missile crisis |
|
|
Sino-Indian war |
1963 |
June |
US -Soviet hotline established |
|
August |
Nuclear test-ban treaty |
|
November |
Coup in South Vietnam; assassination of Ngô Ðình Di |
1964 |
August |
Gulf of Tonkin resolution |
|
October |
Khrushchev replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of Communist Party of USSR |
|
|
China explodes its first atomic weapon |
|
November |
Lyndon Johnson elected US president |
1965 |
March |
3,500 US marines dispatched to South Vietnam |
|
April |
Indo-Pakistan War (–September 1965) |
|
December |
US forces in Vietnam reach 180,000 |
1966 |
March |
President Charles de Gaulle orders removal of NATO headquarters and US and Canadian military bases from France |
|
May |
Cultural Revolution begins in China (–September 1971) |
June |
Arab-Israeli War |
|
|
November |
UN Security Council Resolution 242 |
1968 |
January |
Tet offensive in Vietnam (–August 1968) |
|
March |
Johnson withdraws his candidacy for reelection |
|
April |
UN International Conference on Human Rights (–May 1968) |
|
July |
Great Britain, United States, and USSR sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty |
|
August |
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia |
|
November |
Richard Nixon elected US president |
|
|
Brezhnev doctrine announced |
1969 |
March |
Chinese unit ambushes Soviet forces on Ussuri River |
|
September |
Willy Brandt elected chancellor of West Germany and launches Ostpolitik |
|
November |
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begin in Helsinki |
1970 |
January |
USSR sends assistance to Egypt against Israel |
|
April |
US forces attack communist bases in Cambodia (–May 1970) |
|
August |
Moscow Treaty between West Germany and Soviet Union |
|
September |
Jordanian crisis |
|
|
Socialist candidate Salvador Allende wins presidency of Chile |
|
December |
Treaty between West Germany and Poland |
1971 |
July |
Kissinger visits China |
|
August |
Quadripartite Pact on Berlin |
|
October |
UN General Assembly votes to seat China |
|
December |
Indo-Pakistan War ends in formation of Bangladesh |
1972 |
February |
Nixon visits China |
|
May |
Nixon visits USSR, signing of SALT I and ABM treaties |
|
June |
Break-in at Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, DC |
|
November |
Nixon reelected |
|
December |
West Germany and East Germany sign Basic Treaty |
1973 |
January |
Great Britain joins European Community |
|
|
Paris Peace Accords signed, ending US war in Vietnam |
|
July |
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe opened in Helsinki |
|
September |
Allende overthrown in military coup and dies |
|
October |
War between Israel and Egypt and Syria; Arab oil boycott against Western powers |
August |
Nixon resigns as US president; succeeded by Gerald Ford |
|
|
September |
Ethiopia emperor Haile Selassie overthrown in military coup; Ethiopia then gravitates toward USSR |
1975 |
August |
Signing of Helsinki Accords by thirty-five governments |
|
November |
Outbreak of Angola civil war |
1976 |
June |
South African police attack unarmed student protesters in Soweto |
|
November |
Jimmy Carter elected US president |
1977 |
July |
War between Somalia and Ethiopia (–March 1978) |
|
October |
CSCE meeting (follow-up of Helsinki) in Belgrade |
1978 |
November |
Egyptian president Sadat visits Jerusalem |
|
December |
Vietnam invades Cambodia, establishes puppet government PRK (People’s Republic of Kampuchea) |
1979 |
January |
United States and China establish full diplomatic relations |
|
|
Shah of Iran flees the country |
|
February |
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran from exile |
|
March |
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed in Washington, DC |
|
June |
Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT II treaty |
|
November |
Iranian militants invade US embassy, taking seventy hostages |
|
December |
Soviet troops invade Afghanistan |
1980 |
September |
Polish trade union Solidarność established |
|
|
Iran-Iraq War (–September 1988) |
|
November |
Ronald Reagan elected US president |
1981 |
December |
General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland |
1982 |
April |
Falklands War between Great Britain and Argentina (–June 1982) |
|
June |
Israel invades Lebanon |
|
November |
Death of Brezhnev; succeeded by former KGB chief Yuri Andropov as general secretary of Communist Party of USSR |
1983 |
March |
Reagan announces development of Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) |
|
April |
Attacks on US forces in Lebanon (–October 1983) |
|
September |
Soviet Union shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 |
|
October |
United States invades Grenada |
January |
Reagan calls for renewed negotiations with USSR |
|
|
February |
Death of Andropov; succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko as general secretary of Communist Party of USSR |
|
November |
Reagan reelected as US president |
1985 |
March |
Death of Chernenko; succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of Communist Party of USSR |
|
November |
US -Soviet summit in Geneva |
1986 |
February |
Gorbachev introduces perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) |
|
April |
Explosion at Soviet nuclear power plant in Chernobyl |
|
October |
Reagan-Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavik |
1987 |
June |
Reagan in Berlin urges Gorbachev to “tear down this Wall” |
|
December |
Outbreak of Palestinian Intifada (uprising) on the West Bank and in Gaza |
|
|
Gorbachev in Washington, signs Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty |
1988 |
February |
Gorbachev announces withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan within two years |
|
November |
George H. W. Bush elected US president |
|
December |
Gorbachev address to UN General Assembly announcing end of Cold War |
|
|
Angola-Namibia Accords signed in New York |
1989 |
April |
Roundtable talks in Poland leading to legalization of Solidarność and national elections |
|
May |
Hungary opens border with Austria |
|
June |
Suppression of protest movement in China |
|
August |
Citizens in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania protest fifty-year Soviet occupation |
|
September |
Apartheid ends in South Africa; Nelson Mandela released after twenty-seven years in prison |
|
November |
Berlin Wall falls |
|
December |
Bush and Gorbachev meet in Malta |
|
|
United States invades Panama, removes Manuel Noriega |
|
|
Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu overthrown and executed |
|
|
Václav Havel elected president of Czechoslovakia |
1990 |
July |
NATO summit declares USSR no longer an enemy |
|
August |
Iraq invades Kuwait |
|
October |
German reunification |
|
|
Gorbachev awarded Nobel Peace Prize |
March |
Gorbachev proposes new union treaty for USSR |
|
|
June |
Civil war erupts in Yugoslavia (–November 1995) |
|
August |
Coup in USSR |
|
|
Baltic states declare independence |
|
October |
Opening of Madrid Conference on the Middle East |
|
December |
Dissolution of USSR, Gorbachev resigns |
1992 |
February |
Maastricht Treaty lays basis for European Union |
|
November |
Bill Clinton elected US president |
1993 |
January |
Czechoslovakia divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia |
|
September |
Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestinian Authority |
1994 |
April |
Mandela elected president of South Africa |
|
June |
Carter visits North Korea to negotiate on nuclear weapons |
|
September |
US occupation of Haiti |
1995 |
November |
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin |
|
|
Dayton Peace Agreement ends war in Bosnia |
1996 |
May |
Osama bin Laden returns to Afghanistan from Sudan, issues fatwa against United States |
|
November |
Bill Clinton reelected US president |
1997 |
June |
Britain returns Hong Kong to China |
|
December |
Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions |
1998 |
July |
Rome Statute establishes International Criminal Court |
|
August |
Al Qaeda militants bomb US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people |
1999 |
March |
NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia (–June 1999) |
2000 |
July |
Camp David meeting between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat fails to reach agreement |
|
September |
Outbreak of Second Intifada |
|
October |
Al Qaeda attacks the USS Cole in Yemen, killing seventeen US sailors |
|
November |
George W. Bush elected US president |
2001 |
September |
Using four hijacked planes Al Qaeda terrorists bring down twin towers of World Trade Center in New York and crash into the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania, killing over three thousand people |
|
October |
US and NATO troops invade Afghanistan to capture bin Laden |
