The Greek Civil War began when communists in Greece sought to overthrow their current government. The USSR provided financial aid to implement the communist government. In response, the US issued the Truman Doctrine to stop communism from spreading within Greece. Eventually, the Greek government overthrew the communists thanks to financial aid from the US and joined NATO in 1952

The Marshall Plan was an aid package from the United States, given to several European countries such as Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy. This allowed for economy to start flowing in these countries, and allowed them to prosper, without falling into communist hands.

The Berlin Blockade began when the USSR blocked necessary supplies from being transported to East Berlin. In response, the US began airlifting supplies over the blockade and helped East Berlin.

NATO was an alliance made by the United States, which included 12 different countries from North America and Western Europe. It's clear purpose was to defend one another's right to democracy andagainst communism, in which if one of these countries were attacked, the other allied nations would use their combined military force to enforce the peace.

In 1961, the USSR began to build a physical wall dividing East Berlin from West Berlin. This was to stop anyone living on the East side to move to the West.

The Korean War was between communist North Korea and anti-communist South Korea, both funded by the USSR and the US, respectfully. This was one of the first few examples of a proxy war, in which it ended with a stalemate, where there is now a Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

The Warsaw Pact was an alliance the USSR had with its surrounding communist countries. This alliance allowed the USSR to have tighter control over these countries. The Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955 and disbanded with the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Aside from the tension from a possible nuclear war, the Cold War was also a race for space. The USSR successfully launched the first ever satellite into space in 1957. The US, fearing that this may make the USSR seem superior, set the goal of landing the first man on the moon.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed invasion from the United States against Cuba and its leader at the time, Fidel Castro. The purpose for the invasion was to overthrow Fidel Castro and establish an anti-communist government. This failure contrbuted to the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis started once American reconnaissance gathered intel of Soviet shipments of missiles to Cuba. This was extremely dangerous for the US, as it left most of the US vulnerable to these missiles. As a result, the US enforced a naval blockade around Cuba, and the world entered a very tense period between the US and the USSR. However, a compromise between Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy where the removal of missiles from Cuba and Turkey occurred cooled the tension and inched away from nuclear war.

After Vietnam gained independence from France, the country was divided between a democratic and a communist government. Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the communists, sought to unite the country under communist rule. What waged was a 19 year war, with the US sending in financial aid and military while the USSR did the same. The war ended with Vietnam becoming a communist country and the US's facing defeat.

In order to beat the USSR in the Space race, the US planned to land a man on the moon. Apollo 11, commanded by Neil Armstrong, successfully landed a man on the moon, placing the US's flag onto the moon.

During the start of the Cold War, Cold War tensions between America and China was on the rise, which took a sudden, more productive turn in 1972. The president at the time, Richard Nixon, visited China for a week and held discussions with his advisors and PRC leadership, which lead to the first step in decreasing tensions, as well as inadvertently weakening the USSR.

After having been separated for nearly 30 years, the East Berlin's Communist Party announced that the Berlin Wall that bordered West Berlin from East Berlin and separated them would no longer be in operation. Millions of Berliners from both West and East flocked around the border, waiting until midnight for the border to no longer be in effect. At midnight, the checkpoints across the Berlin Wall became open, as East and West Berliners could freely move between the two sides of Berlin. Berliners would go on to break down the wall and allowed for the reunification of West and East Germany in 1990.