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.