The Cold War began after World War ll and continued until 1991 which was when the Soviet Union fell. It began it's control over the states of the Eastern Bloc while it began a strategy of containment to challenge Soviet power. With the outbreak of the Chinese and Korean war in the 50s, the conflict expanded. It also suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Suez Crisis in 1956, Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
From 1961 to 1989, the Berlin Wall stopoed East Germans from going to West Germany. If they tried to go they were shot. That was until on November 9th, 1989 they tore down the wall and East Germans had the freedom to go west.
The Cuban project was devised under the Kennedy administration in 1961. Khrushchev learned about the project in February 1962 and preparations to install Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were undertaken in response. It brought the world so close to nuclear war. The aftermath led to the first efforts of nuclear arms race at nuclear disarmament and improving relations.
US troop levels in Vietnam grew under the Military Assistance Advisory Group program from just under a thousand in 1959 to 16,000 in 1963. The war escalated in 1964 following the Gulf of Tonkin incident where an American destroyer was alleged to have clashed with North Vietmanese fast attack craft.
The Second Cold War that lasted from 1979 to 1985 refers to the period of intensive reawakening of Cold War tensions and conflicts in the late 70s and early 80s.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the collapse of European communist governments and ended the Iron Curtain divide of Europe. The 1989 revolutionary wave swept across Central and Eastern Europe and overthrew all the communist states. Romania was the only country to topple its communist regime violently and execute it's head of state. Two years later in December 1991, the Soviet Union fell.
