Timeline

1945 – End of World War II; division of Germany & Korea; formation of the United Nations

1946 – Start of the Greek Civil War (until 1949); US & USSR begin Cold War tensions

1947 – Truman Doctrine announced; India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain; CIA established

1948 – Berlin Blockade & Airlift; Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi; Israeli Independence & First Arab-Israeli War

1949 – NATO founded; Chinese Communist victory in the Civil War (PRC established); Soviet Union tests its first nuclear bomb

1950-1953 – Korean War

1952 – First UK nuclear test; Nasser leads Egyptian Revolution

1953 – Stalin dies; CIA-backed coup in Iran (Operation Ajax); Korean Armistice signed

1954 – CIA-backed coup in Guatemala; Battle of Dien Bien Phu (French defeated in Indochina)

1955 – Warsaw Pact formed; Vietnam War begins (US advisors deployed)

1956 – Suez Crisis; Hungarian Revolution crushed by the USSR

1957 – Sputnik launched by the USSR; Start of the Space Race

1958 – Cuban Revolution begins; US Marines intervene in Lebanon

1959 – Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba; Tibetan Uprising against China

1960 – Congo Crisis begins (Patrice Lumumba assassinated in 1961)

1961 – Bay of Pigs Invasion; Berlin Wall constructed

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 – Assassination of JFK; Ba'athists take power in Iraq

1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident; US escalates Vietnam War

1965 – Indonesia’s anti-communist purge; India-Pakistan War

1966 – China’s Cultural Revolution begins

1967 – Six-Day War (Arab-Israeli War)

1968 – Prague Spring crushed by Soviet forces; Tet Offensive in Vietnam

1969 – Apollo 11 Moon Landing

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War; Nixon visits China

1973 – Yom Kippur War; Chilean coup (Pinochet overthrows Allende)

1974 – Turkish invasion of Cyprus

1975 – End of Vietnam War; Khmer Rouge seizes power in Cambodia

1976 – Death of Mao Zedong

1979 – Iranian Revolution; Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan; US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran

1980 – Iran-Iraq War begins

1981 – Assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan; Solidarity movement in Poland

1982 – Falklands War (UK vs Argentina)

1983 – US invasion of Grenada; Able Archer ’83 almost triggers nuclear war

1985 – Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader; Glasnost and Perestroika policies begin

1986 – Chernobyl disaster; Iran-Contra Affair exposed

1987 – INF Treaty signed by the US & USSR

1989 – Fall of the Berlin Wall; Tiananmen Square Massacre; US invades Panama (Operation Just Cause)

1990 – German reunification; First Gulf War begins (Iraq invades Kuwait)

1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union; Yugoslav Wars begin

1992 – Bosnian War starts; US intervenes in Somalia

1993 – First World Trade Center bombing

1994 – Rwandan Genocide; NATO intervenes in Bosnia

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing

1997 – Handover of Hong Kong to China

1999 – NATO intervention in Kosovo; Vladimir Putin becomes Russian Prime Minister

2001 – 9/11 attacks; US invades Afghanistan (War on Terror begins)

2002 – India-Pakistan military standoff over Kashmir

2003 – US-led invasion of Iraq; Saddam Hussein captured

2004 – Ukrainian Orange Revolution

2005 – London Bombings; Israel withdraws from Gaza

2006 – North Korea tests its first nuclear bomb

2008 – Global financial crisis; Russia-Georgia War

2009 – Iranian Green Movement protests; US begins withdrawal from Iraq