The H-bomb

development of the H-bomb began in 1950 and the lead man of devoloping the H-bomb was a J. Robert Oppenheimer who strongly disliked the idea of the H-bomb but still decided to work on it. The Americans Succesfully tested the first H-bomb on 12 August, 1953. When this was tested Openheimer was saddened by how destructive it was. On the H-bomb Openheimer was reprted to have said "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." He says this because the H-bomb can quite literally destroy worlds many times over. Though we believed the Soviets wouldn't make their H-bomb in a long while they succesfully tested their first H-bomb only two years later on November 22, 1955. This created a impass between the U.S. and Soviet Union because both didn't want a nuclear war.

the cuban missile crisis

The cuban missile crisis was the closest we ever came to nuclear war. This nearly happened because in 1962 the U.S. found out that the soviet union had been giving missiles to cuba. This greatly frightened the U.S. because these missiles were being readied to maybe shoot at the U.S.
We found out about these missiles because of our U-2 planes photographing Cuba. however we didn't come to nuclear war because of negotiations between our then president John F. Kennedy and then dictator of Soviet Union Kruschev. We worked out a treaty in which the Soviet Union would remove their missiles from Cuba as long as the U.S. removed their missiles from Turkey. The two agreed to this and nuclear war was averted.

Nuclear arms race

During the cold war the U.S. and Soviet Union both wanted an edge over the other so that began the nuclear arms race. It really started when America started building the A-bomb and we bombed Hiroshima. The soviet union felt threatened so they tried to find out how to make the A-bomb. However the U.S. weren't afraid because we were confident the Soviet Union wouldn't find out how to make it in many years. however it only took four years for the soviet union to make one. After this the U.S. tried desperately to make a more powerful bomb which started the race for the H-bomb which started in the 1950's. The U.S. succesfully built and tested the H-bomb in november 1, 1952. however someone fed information to the soviet union about the H-bomb which led the soviet union to make the H-bomb only three years later and later in 1955 the soviet union tested their first H-bomb. The nuclear arms race after all the bombs and nukes sadly still hasn't ended so we still keep fighting for the bigger and better weapon.

the U-2 incident

in U.S. and Soviet history, the events following the Soviet downing of an American U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The incident led to the collapse of a proposed summit conference between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France in Paris. President Eisenhower's initial claim that he had no knowledge of such flights was difficult to maintain when the Soviets produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had survived the crash. Eisenhower met Khrushchev's demand for an apology by suspending U-2 flights, but the Soviet Premier was not satisfied and the summit was canceled. Powers was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in 1962 in exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel. This happened on may 1, 1960.

U.S.A.'s role in the cold war

After World War II, the United States had effectively become the most powerful and influential country in the world. However during this we had many hostilities mainly from the soviet union. In this there was the struggle of America trying to contain communism yet there was never any direct military confrontation between the two we still had a strong resentment of the soviet union and all communists. In 1950 to 1953 the us tried to contain communism in north korea by fighting the communists in the korean war. south korea and the u.s. both fought against north korea while the soviet union sent aid to north korea. finally the war ended by signing of the armistance in july 27, 1953. then in 1954 the vietnam war started because of communism in north vietnam. the war there officialy ended in 1975 after the fall of saigon. However it really wasn't considered a victory for the U.S. nor a defeat as we only pulled out of vietnam because of protest. So America's role in the cold war was the U.S. trying to contain communism while trying to avoid war with the soviet union.

modern day cold war

Despite the cold war ending years ago between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. there is still alot of tension between the two. If you have watched the olympics you'll probably notice that between the U.S. and Russia the tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. If the U.S. lost to Russia americans would really get angry because the russians beat us at something and we didn't beat them. This is similar to the space when america tried their hardest to get a satelite into space yet russia beat us there by getting their satelite sputnik into space. After this america frantically tried to get a spaceship into space. We won this race by being the first ones to explore the moon. Pretty much everything the U.S. or russians do it becomes a competition between the two. America and Russia never want to lose to each other no matter what the cost is, they'll try to out do eachother. And this rivalry between the two former allies will probably not stop for a long time to come.

tensions in cold war

The first atomic bomb was used by the United States against Japan at the end of World War Two. in four years, the Soviet Union also developed the atom bomb. America's fears were increased by the fact that the Soviet Union was actively expanding its military influence in Eastern Europe at the time. So the United States adopted a policy for keeping the soviet union at bay. Related to this policy was the strategy of deterrence, which sought to protect the Western nations from the possibilty of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. The concepts of containment and deterrence were to have a strong influence on Soviet-American relations over the following decades. In order to protect its interests in the region, the United States joined with several Western European nations in 1949 to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1955, the Soviet Union formed a similar alliance among the Eastern European nations known as the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The international tensions that arose between these two superpower blocs became known as the "Cold War."

democracy and commies

In WW2 america and soviet russia allies during the war soon became bitter enemies after the war because The Us didn't like the way the soviets were handleing germany when it had been split into 4 parts, and they didn't like the communistic ways that they had. The main reason however was because of the clash between communism and capitalism. the cold war started sometime in 1945. The U.S. were very afraid of communism and so they started the containment of communism. When china and korea and china started falling under the influence of communism they were divided into two parts north and south. like with korea the nationalist part of korea was the south side and the communist part was in the north side. the leader of north korea was Kim Il Sung and the leader of south korea was Syngman Rhee. America of course supported south korea and even went to war with south korea against north korea which lasted from 1950 to 1953. The chinese did not like this as they became close allies with the soviet union after WW2. So naturally they fought with north korea against the U.S. and south korea. For awhile it seemed as if the communists might win until general MaCarthur launched his miracle counter attack bringing down the communists. shortly after this the soviet union asked for a cease fire to which the U.S. agreed. evidently the cold war had no starting date but it did end in 1991.