1. The Cold War

2. Important dates to remember from WW2
: World War 2
: US involvement in WW2
(1933) The Holocaust in Europe
1931: Japan invades Manchuria
1937; Rape of Nanking
December 7th, 1941; Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
1945 US drops atom bombs on Japan

3. Aftermath
Germany is completely conquered and is divided up geographically between the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union
Nuremberg Trials
Japan is utterly destroyed and the United States sets up a provisional government under the administration of General Douglas MacArthur.
The Soviet Union and the United States emerge as the two dominant super-powers in the world.

4. Allied Plans for the Postwar World
The WW2 Allies had three meetings to determine what the world would be like after the war.
11/1943- Tehran
2/1945 Yalta
7/1945 Potsdam

5. Tehran- 1943
At Tehran it was decided that Germany would be split in half between the western Allies and the Soviet Union after the war

6. Yalta- 2/1945
The Allies tried to agree to free elections in Eastern Europe
Agreed that Germany must surrender unconditionally

7. Potsdam; 7/1945
At this conference, the American president and British PM demanded free elections in Eastern Europe- Stalin refused.

10. So, When did the Cold War begin? Two Answers based on POV
American/Western POV
Soviet POV
1918: During the Russian Civil War when the U.S.A. & Great Britain invaded Russia to prevent the Soviet government from keeping power after the Russian Revolution.
After 1941 when the Western Allies refused to open a “2nd Front” to relieve them from the Germans.
1945 at Potsdam when Stalin refused to allow for popular sovereignty in formerly German-occupied Eastern-European nations.

11. Aspects of the Cold War Atomic/Nuclear Arms race (aka the Space Race)
The Cold War was “fought” between the USA and the USSR and later, Communist China
U.S. Pressure for German re-armament
Soviet desire for “Satellites” or, “Buffer zones”
Development of The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd “Worlds”
Proxy wars between the major powers

12. Proxy Wars Arab-Israeli Wars: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, & 1982…
Korea
Vietnam (1954)
Afghanistan

13. Cold War ARMS RACE Space Race Soviets demonstrate their Atom Bomb 1949
Americans demonstrate Hydrogen Bomb 1952
1957 Sputnik
MAD
“Duck and Cover!”
Space Race
“Our Germans are better than their Germans”.
1961 Yuri Gagarin, st Woman in space, st Spacewalk
1969 Neil Armstrong- 1st to walk on the Moon.

14. questions

15. 1980- The creation of “Solidarity” in Poland
Massive shipyard strikes led by Lech Walesa
Forced Polish Government to recognize workers’ right to protest.
1983- “Star Wars”- the Strategic Arms Defense Initiative
1985- Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power
Glasnost & perestroika
1989- The Berlin Wall falls
Hungary becomes the 1st Eastern Bloc nation to open borders to the West
1991- The Soviet Union breaks up