Timeline of Nuclear Countries 1945 1949 1952 1960 1964 1972 1974 58 megaton test Hiroshima = 0.02 megatons US – USSR missile gap? A “Potemkin Village”??

Leonid Brezhnev Succeeds Khrushchev in 1964 after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“My God, help me to survive this deadly Love”

Weapons to know… ICBM – Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile MIRV – Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles Cruise and SS20 – mobile missile systems Nuclear powered submarines

Terms to know… M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction SAC – Strategic Air Command – air force kept aloft 24 hours per day, loaded with nukes to discourage a pre-emptive Soviet strike Conventional Weapons – all weapons short of nuclear weapons Pre-Emptive Strike – a surprise nuclear attack to disable the enemy

1957 - Sputnik Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments

1957 – Laika (aka “Muttnik) Laika was a Soviet space dog who became one of the first animals in space, and the first animal to orbit the Earth. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957. Laika's survival was not expected. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by animals as a necessary precursor to human missions. Laika died within hours from overheating. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. A small monument in her honour was built near the military research facility in Moscow that prepared Laika's flight to space. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket. She also appears on the Monument to the Conquerors of Space in Moscow.

1959 - Space Monkey On May 28, 1959, aboard the JUPITER AM-18, Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey flew a successful mission. Able was born at the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kansas. They travelled in excess of 16,000 km/h, and withstood 38 g (373 m/s2). Able died June 1, 1959, while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode, from a reaction to the anesthesia. Baker became the first monkey to survive the stresses of spaceflight and the related medical procedures. Baker died November 29, 1984, at the age of 27 and is buried on the grounds of the United States Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Able was preserved, and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Their names were taken from a phonetic alphabet.

1961 – Yuri Gagarin was a Russian Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting crashed. The Yuri Gagarin Medal is awarded in his honor.

1963 - Valentina Tereshkova is a retired Russian cosmonaut and politician. She is the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space. Before her recruitment as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. She remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union and is still regarded as a hero in post-Soviet Russia. In 2013, she offered to go on a one-way trip to Mars if the opportunity arose. At the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics, she was a carrier of the Olympic flag.

1969 – Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969. Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module

The race to space prompted both governments to promote maths and sciences heavily in public school curriculum. This included the building of space-like play equipment in school and public parks.

European Economic Community The Council of Europe Goal – promote unity amongst nations with a common heritage – UK was not a member 1949 The Schuman Plan manage all steel/coal production in Fr/Ger as one unit. 1950 European Coal and Steel Community not Britain… did not trust Europe and thought membership would interfere with her role in the wider world, and also felt she had a special relationship with the USA. 1952 European Defense Community Plan to unite all defenses, but blocked by France Reduce the dependence on Arab oil by developing atomic power alternatives. Britain did not join as she was reluctant to share her nuclear technology. France, also developing her own nuclear capability, lost interest. A failed initiative 1957 Euratom

The European Economic Community Treaty of Rome: January 1, 1958 -establish closer relations between Western European nations freedom of movement for persons, services, & capital *note – the UK would join the EEC by 1973, after de Gaulle had tried to veto their membership in 1960