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Here is a great video that breaks down the 45 year world conflict in just 12 minutes. It mentions all the countries that were involved and the ways in which it was fought.

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USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39

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The United States and the Soviet Union had been allies in defeating the Germans and Japanese during the War.  However, with both looking to exert their dominance in world power this alliance would quickly deteriorate.

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Throughout Europe, both sides begin fortifying their land areas with Germany being the battleground. The Soviets try to blockade Berlin and claim it for themselves since it had been split up into quadrants at the end of the war. In an effort to combat this the U.S and its allies sends in supplies by air to help the citizens who are occupied.

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Table of Contents

1. The Berlin Airlift: The Partitioning of Berlin

2. The Berlin Airlift: The Berlin Blockade

3. The Berlin Airlift: "Operation VITTLES" Begins

4. The Berlin Airlift: The End of the Blockade

After World War II, the Allies partitioned the defeated Germany into a Soviet-occupied zone, an American-occupied zone, a British-occupied zone and a French-occupied zone. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four sections. In June 1948, the Russians-who wanted Berlin all for themselves-closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. This effort, known as the "Berlin Airlift," lasted for more than a year and carried more than 2.3 million tons of cargo into West Berlin.

The Berlin Airlift: The Partitioning of Berlin

As World War II came to an end in 1945, the Allied powers held peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam to determine how they would divide up Germany's territories. The agreements split the defeated nation into four "allied occupation zones": They gave the eastern part of the country to the Soviet Union and the Western part to the U.S. and Great Britain. In turn, those nations agreed to cede a small part of their territories to France.

Did you know? During the Berlin airlift, an Allied supply plane took off or landed in West Berlin every 30 seconds. The planes made nearly 300,000 flights in all.

Even though Berlin was located entirely within the Soviet part of the country (it sat about 100 miles from the border between the eastern and western occupation zones), the Yalta and Potsdam agreements likewise split the German capital into Allied sectors: The Soviets took the eastern half, while the other Allies took the western. This occupation of Berlin, governed by a multipower agency called the Kommandatura, began in June 1945.

The Soviets were dissatisfied with this arrangement. Twice in recent memory, they had been invaded by Germany, and they had no interest in promoting that country's reunification-yet it seemed that was exactly what the United States, Great Britain and France had in mind. For example, in 1947 the Americans and the British combined their two sectors into a single "Bizonia," and the French were preparing to join as well. In 1948, the three western Allies created a single new currency (the Deutsche Mark) for all of their occupation zones-a move that the Soviets feared would fatally devalue the already hyperinflated Reichsmarks that they used in the east. For the Soviets, it was the last straw.

The Berlin Airlift: The Berlin Blockade

The Russians were also concerned about a unified West Berlin: a capitalist city located right in the middle of their occupation zone that would likely be powerfully and aggressively anti-Soviet. They decided that something needed to be done to stop this creeping unificationism. They withdrew from the Kommandatura and began a blockade of West Berlin, a maneuver that they hoped would effectively starve the western powers out of Berlin. If West Germany was to become its own country, they argued, then Berlin, located more than 100 miles from its border, could no longer be its capital.

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet authorities announced that the Autobahn, the highway connecting western Germany to Berlin, would be closed indefinitely "for repairs." Then, they halted all road traffic from west to east, and barred all barge and rail traffic from entering West Berlin. Thus began the blockade of Berlin.

As far as the western Allies were concerned, withdrawal from the city was not an option. "If we withdraw," said the American military commander, "our position in Europe is threatened, and Communism will run rampant." President Harry Truman echoed this sentiment: "We shall stay," he declared, "period." Using military force to strike back against the Soviet blockade seemed equally unwise: The risk of turning the Cold War into an actual war-even worse, a nuclear war-was just too great. Finding another way to re-provision the city seemed to the Allies to be the only reasonable response.

The Berlin Airlift: "Operation VITTLES" Begins

It was quickly settled: The Allies would supply their sectors of Berlin from the air. Allied cargo planes would use open air corridors over the Soviet occupation zone to deliver food, fuel and other goods to the people who lived in the western part of the city. This project, code-named "Operation VITTLES" by the American military, was known as the "Berlin airlift." (West Berliners called it the "Air Bridge.")

The Berlin airlift was supposed to be a short-term measure, but it settled in for the long haul as the Soviets refused to lift the blockade. For more than a year, hundreds of American, British and French cargo planes ferried provisions from Western Europe to the Tempelhof (in the American sector), Gatow (in the British sector) and Tegel (in the French sector) airfields in West Berlin. At the beginning of the operation, the planes delivered about 5,000 tons of supplies to West Berlin every day; by the end, those loads had increased to about 8,000 tons of supplies per day. The Allies carried about 2.3 million tons of cargo in all over the course of the airlift.

Life in West Berlin during the blockade was not easy. Fuel and electricity were rationed, and the black market was the only place to obtain many goods. Still, most West Berliners supported the airlift and their western allies. "It's cold in Berlin," one airlift-era saying went, "but colder in Siberia."

The Berlin Airlift: The End of the Blockade

By spring 1949, it was clear that the Soviet blockade of West Berlin had failed. It had not persuaded West Berliners to reject their allies in the West, nor had it prevented the creation of a unified West German state. (The Federal Republic of Germany was established in May 1949.) On May 12, 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade and reopened the roads, canals and railway routes into the western half of the city. The Allies continued the airlift until September, however, because they wanted to stockpile supplies in Berlin just in case the blockade was reinstated.

Most historians agree that the blockade was a failure in other ways, too. It amped up Cold War tensions and made the USSR look to the rest of the world like a cruel and capricious enemy. It hastened the creation of West Germany, and, by demonstrating that the U.S. and Western European nations had common interests (and a common foe), it motivated the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance that still exists today.

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Berlin Airlift - Definition, Blockade & Date | HISTORY

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The Berlin Airlift was the name of an operation that carried supplies by plane to the Allied sectors of West Berlin over a Russian blockade in the late 1940s.

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After over a year, the Soviets eventually withdraw their blockade and agree to obey the terms that were set aside for the city of Berlin at the conclusion of the war. This would last until the re-unification of Germany in 1990.

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In 1949, the Soviets tested their first successful Nuclear Weapon. Until this point, only the United States had these capabilities at their disposal. Now with being on par with the U.S, the Soviets feel comfortable with spreading their communist ideology throughout Asia.

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Race for the Superbomb | Article

First Soviet Test

The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, known in the West as Joe-1, on Aug. 29, 1949, at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan.

The Soviets called their first atomic test "First Lightning." A train belching black smoke, shipped the bomb components 2,000 miles from Arzamas, the weapons laboratory in Russia to the test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. Like the Americans, the Soviets constructed a tower from which to test their weapon. They assembled the device in an adjacent concrete hall which had railway trucks running down its entire length. The bomb components came in one end and the completed device was wheeled out the other end to be hoisted to the top of the tower.

The Soviets wanted to learn about the effects of nuclear weapons. So in addition to instruments that would measure the size of the shock wave and the intensity of the radiation, they constructed wooden and brick houses, bridges, tunnels and water towers in the vicinity of the tower. They also put caged animals nearby so that they could study the effects of nuclear radiation.

Igor Kurchatov, the scientific director of the soviet nuclear bomb program who was in charge of the test, arrived at the site in May of 1949. In the weeks leading up to the blast he organized two rehearsals so everyone would know exactly what to do on shot day. The chair of the Special Committee on the atomic bomb, Lavrentii Beria, arrived in the middle of August. He observed the assembly work and reported back to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

At 2 am on August 29, 1949 the assembled bomb was wheeled to the tower. The blast was scheduled for 6 am. Kurchatov and a handful of other scientists gathered in the command post with Beria and his entourage. They left the door open so they could watch the blast go off . They knew that they would have time to close the door because it would take 30 seconds for the shock wave to reach them. Kurchatov gave the order for the detonation.

An observer from a northern post about nine miles from the blast had one of the best views: "On top of the tower an unbearably bright light blazed up. For a moment or so it dimmed and then with new force began to grow quickly. The white fireball engulfed the tower and the workshop and expanding rapidly, changing color it rushed upwards. The blast wave at the base, sweeping in its path structures, stone houses, machines, rolled like a billow from the center, mixing up stones, logs of wood, pieces of metal and dust into one chaotic mass. The fireball, rising and revolving, turned orange, red. Then dark streaks appeared. Streams of dust, fragments of brick and board were drawn in after it, as into a funnel."

The relief and euphoria in the room was overwhelming. Kurchatov cried out, "It works! It works!" And Iulii Khariton, the scientific director of Arzamas, remembers Beria hugging him. All of the scientists knew that their own personal fates depended on the success of the bomb. One of them later said that if it had failed they would have all been shot. But besides being thankful for their own lives, many of the scientists felt they had contributed to the Soviet Union's security. Khariton later said, "when we succeeded in solving this problem, we felt relief, even happiness -- for in possessing such a weapon we had removed the possibility of its being used against the USSR with impunity."

Beria's own joy temporarily dissipated when his suspicions got the better of him. He put a call through to an observer at the north post who had also witnessed an American test in 1946. "Is it the same as the American one?" Beria wanted to know. "It is," the observer assured him. The bomb had in fact yielded 20 kilotons, making it about the same size as Trinity, the first U.S. atomic test.

Two months later the scientists principally responsible for designing the bomb won honors for their roles on the project. As the story goes, Beria adopted a simple rule in deciding who should get what prize. Those who would have been shot if the bomb had failed, became Heroes of Socialist Labor; those who would have been imprisoned were awarded the less prestigious honor, the Order of Lenin.

"Layer Cake" Test

On August 20, 1953, the Soviet press announced that the USSR had tested a hydrogen bomb. Eight days prior in Kazakhstan, the explosive device "Joe-4" put to the Soviet developed "layer cake" design to the test. The bomb technology received its name due to its alternating layers of a fusion fuel, consisting of lithium-6 deuteride with tritium, and a fusion tamper, uranium. Results of the explosion seemed to indicate the device as more similar to a powerful fission bomb than an actual hydrogen bomb. The test's explosion yielded the equivalent of 400 kilotons of TNT, making it 30 times larger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was also small enough to fit in a plane and therefore, unlike "Mike" the American thermonuclear device tested a year earlier, it was not limited and could easily be turned into a deliverable weapon.

Initial Soviet research into the H-bomb followed closely the path the U.S. scientists were pursuing. The work was conducted by a group in Leningrad led by Iakov Zel'dovich that had been given access to information provided by atomic spy Klaus Fuchs. This included a detailed description of the "classical super" design, physicist Edward Teller's original idea for a super bomb. Zel'dovich's team began calculations on the basis of this information. But in 1948, Igor Kurchatov, director of the Soviet nuclear program, set up a second team to investigate the feasibility of the H-bomb. Its assignment was to check the Zel'dovich group's calculations.

Andrei Sakharov was a member of this second team. Before long, he had come up with an innovative new scheme. He suggested a "Layer Cake" design, which would consist of alternating layers of hydrogen fuel and uranium. High explosives surrounding the "Layer Cake" would be used to implode and ignite an atomic bomb at the center of the device. The atomic explosion would heat and compress the hydrogen fuel sufficiently to cause a fusion reaction. The fusion reaction in the hydrogen would lead to the emission of high energy neutrons which would in turn create further fissioning in the uranium.

Another talented young physicist Vitalii Ginzburg's came up with what Sakharov called the "Second Idea." Initially Sakharov suggested that the hydrogen fuel should consist of a mixture of deuterium and tritium, both of which are isotopes of hydrogen. Ginzburg suggested using lithium deuteride instead, a compound of lithium and deuterium, which has the advantage of being a solid at room temperature. In addition, it would produce tritium during the course of the explosion. Kurchatov understood immediately that Ginzburg's idea was a breakthrough and he arranged to have lithium deuteride produced on an industrial scale.

The first test of the "Layer Cake" took place on August 12, 1953. Four days earlier, one of the Soviet leaders, Georgii Malenkov announced to the Supreme Soviet that the U.S. no longer had a monopoly in hydrogen weapons. The scientists, who were already at the test site heard the speech on the radio. And in his memoirs, Sakharov noted that Malenkov's announcement would have "raised the tension if we had not already been keyed up to the maximum."

Just a few days before the detonation, the scientists realized that fallout from the blast might seriously injure people living in the surrounding area. At the last minute, the military commander organized an evacuation; some of those removed from their homes couldn't return for 18 months.

Kurchatov was in charge of the test and gave the order for the countdown. A witness gave this account of the blast: "The earth trembled beneath us, and our faces were struck, like the lash of a whip, by the dull, strong sound of the rolling explosion. From the jolt of the shock wave it was difficult to stand on one's feet. A cloud of dust rose to a height of eight kilometers (five miles). The top of the atomic mushroom reached a height of twelve kilometers (seven and a half miles), while the diameter of the dust of the cloud column was approximately six kilometers (almost four miles). For those who observed the explosion from the west, day was replaced by night."

Soviet Two Stage Weapon Test

In the spring of 1954, three years after U.S. scientists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam came up with a solution for building a superbomb, their Soviet counterparts hit upon the same idea: radiation implosion. According to physicist Andrei Sakharov, several scientists came up with the answer at the same time. And they all recognized that this was the way to build a weapon of virtually unlimited explosive force. Almost immediately the team abandoned Sakharov's "Layer Cake" design which they had been working on for several years.

A test of the new design was scheduled for November 20, 1955. By early October the device had been loaded onto a military train and sent the 2,000 miles from the weapons lab in Russia to the test site in Kazakhstan. In an effort to minimize the fallout from the blast, the bomb was to be dropped from a plane and detonated at an altitude sufficiently high to ensure that dust would not be drawn up into the radioactive cloud. To reduce the risk that the bomber would be ignited by the heat of the blast, it was painted with white reflective paint.

The first attempt to carry out the mission was aborted at the very last moment. The plane had already taken off carrying its deadly cargo. As it approached ground zero, a low cloud unexpectedly obscured the crew's view of the test site. Igor Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet nuclear program, called off the test. The airfield had iced over while the bomber was in the air and Kurchatov worried that a crash might cause the bomb to explode. Sakharov was ordered to the command post, where he stated in writing that an accidental detonation of the device was extremely unlikely. The runway was cleared and the plane landed safely.

The test went ahead two days later. Sakharov watched the blast from a post about 45 miles away. He described it in his memoirs. "I saw a blinding yellow-white sphere swiftly expand, turn orange in a fraction of a second, then turn bright red and touch the horizon, flattening out at its base... Shock waves crisscrossed the sky, emitting sporadic milky-white cones and adding to the mushroom image. I felt heat like that from an open furnace on my face--and this was in freezing weather, tens of miles from ground zero."

Following the success of the test, news of two accidents immediately dampened the scientists' exuberant mood. A trench had collapsed under the force of the explosion killing a young soldier. And in a nearby town a two-year-old girl was killed when the shock wave demolished a rudimentary bomb shelter. Seeing the unbelievable destruction caused by the blast and hearing about the two deaths made Sakharov reflect more deeply on his responsibility in creating weapons of mass destruction than he ever had before. "I experienced a range of contradictory sentiments, perhaps chief among them a fear that this newly released force could slip out of control and lead to unimaginable disasters."

An incident at a banquet to celebrate the event heightened his foreboding. Sakharov made the first toast. In his memoirs he remembers saying: "May all our devices explode as successfully as today's, but always over test sites and never over cities." The military director of the test, Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, responded with a joke that challenged the role of scientists in the Soviet Union.

The point of Nedelin's story was clear to Sakharov. The scientists' job was to create the weapons, not to decide how to use them; that was up to the Party leaders and military hierarchy. More than 20 years later he wrote: "Of course, I knew this already--I wasn't that naive. But understanding something in an abstract way is different from feeling it with your whole being, like the reality of life and death. The ideas and emotions kindled at that moment have not diminished to this day, and they completely altered my thinking."

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Soviet Tests | American Experience | PBS

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Race for the Superbomb | Article The Soviets called their first atomic test "First Lightning." A train belching black smoke, shipped the bomb components 2,000 miles from Arzamas, the weapons laboratory in Russia to the test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. Like the Americans, the Soviets constructed a tower from which to test their weapon.

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With this new power, the Chinese backed by the Soviets aid North Korea in trying to re-unify the Korean Peninsula which had been split up between the United State and the Soviets when World War 2 ended.

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After three years and nearly 5 million civilian and soldier deaths a cease fire is signed and the war is ended. North and South Korea are separated by the 38th parallel which is still recognized today.

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Watch and share Korean War GIFs on Gfycat

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In an effort to keep its citizens from defecting to democratic West Germany, the East German Communist party builds a concrete wall that will separate the two sides of the city. This wall would remain standing for the next 28 years.

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The construction of the Berlin Wall - Berlin.de

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Around 2.7 million people left the GDR and East Berlin between 1949 and 1961, causing increasing difficulties for the leadership of the East German communist party, the SED. Around half of this steady stream of refugees were young people under the age of 25. Roughly half a million people crossed the…

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In response to the United States placing nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey, the Soviet Union places missiles in Cuba to deter an American invasion of the communist country in October 1962. Over the next two weeks the world waits as both countries negotiate a peaceful resolution to this conflict. It's the closest both sides come to nuclear war.

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The thirteen days marking the most dangerous period of the Cuban missile crisis begin. President Kennedy and principal foreign policy and national defense officials are briefed on the U-2 findings. Discussions begin on how to respond to the challenge. Two principal courses are offered: an air strike and invasion, or a naval quarantine with the threat of further military action. To avoid arousing public concern, the president maintained his official schedule, meeting periodically with advisors to discuss the status of events in Cuba and possible strategies.

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John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

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October 16, 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

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The John F. Kennedy library and museum Cuban Missile Crisis page. Access the Kennedy Library Digital Archives, which includes 300,000 scanned documents, films, and audio clips with materials such as early drafts of the John F. Kennedy inaugural address, Fidel Castro, Bay of Pigs, Missiles, Russia, Sviet Union, John f.

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In February of 1972, President Nixon visits China and engages with its leaders for the first time in 25 years.  It is seen as a major step towards reducing tension between the allies of the Soviet Union and the west.

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Nixon in China: The Week that Changed the World

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After a successful visit in China, President Nixon visits Moscow in May 1972. He meets with Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev at the Moscow Summit where they sign the SALT treaty. It promises to limit the number of nuclear missiles both countries have with the intention of disarmament in the future.

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Here is a world overview of countries and their ideologies during the Cold War.

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As the 1980s progressed, countries that were part of the Soviet block begin to express their desire to breakaway and become their own democratically elected countries. With the Soviet Union experiencing economic problems of its own, it does little to prevent them from leaving. The first major sign of this is the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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With continued weakening of the economy, the Soviet Union is unable to sustain itself and collapses.  It once again becomes Russia and attempts to create a free market economy and a democratically elected leader.  With this change in philosophy and leadership, the Cold War officially ends.

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On December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. Representatives from Soviet republics (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus,

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Don't be afraid. This guide is here to provide you with the basic knowledge of what the Cold War was, who was involved, and the major moments that defined this period in history.

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This guide was created with the intention of filling the gap I believe many history classes fail to discuss once World War 2 has been reviewed. I hope that by reading this guide it gives you an idea of how many important historical events occurred during the Cold War.

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Curation for a Targeted Audience Reflection