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As a 1953 armistice ended fighting in the Korean War, a similar Cold War crisis was unfolding further south in Vietnam. A narrow, mountainous coastal nation sandwiched between China, Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam had long been dominated by foreign imperialists.
October 15th: Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for easing Cold War tensions. November 17th: Gorbachev proposes a significant restructuring of the Soviet government. November 21st: Leaders of 34 nations, including the US and Soviet Union, sign the Paris Charter.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
The Viet Cong. With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam.
Major episodes of the renewed Cold War include a US-led boycott of the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics following the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979, and the reciprocal Soviet boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles; Soviet deployment of ballistic missiles targeting Western Europe and deployment of ...
The conflict in Vietnam took root during an independence movement against French colonial rule and evolved into a Cold War confrontation. The conflict in Vietnam took root during an independence movement against French colonial rule and evolved into a Cold War confrontation.
The Second Cold War began to unfold in the late 1970s and continued into the 1980s. It marked the end of Détente, which had produced arms reduction treaties and better relations. 2. Two contributing factors were the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Three events heralded the end of the Cold War: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Each was brought about or shaped by the demands and actions of ordinary Europeans, who were determined to instigate change.
How was the Vietnam War part of the Cold War? The United States helped South Vietnam; The Soviet Union helped North Vietnam. Which statement best describes the end of the Vietnam War? After the United States withdrew, North Vietnam won the war.
The escalation period of the Vietnam War, from 1955 to 1965, mirrored the Cold War in that the United States and USSR avoided direct conflict—and thereby the possibility of nuclear war—by operating through proxy governments and forces.
During 1989 and 1990, the Berlin Wall came down, borders opened, and free elections ousted Communist regimes everywhere in eastern Europe. In late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its component republics. With stunning speed, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end.
The Iran–Iraq WarThe Iran–Iraq War took place from 1980 to 1988.
The Cold War from 1979 to 1985 was a late phase of the Cold War marked by a sharp increase in hostility between the Soviet Union and the West. It arose from a strong denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
Historians have identified several causes that led to the outbreak of the Cold War, including: tensions between the two nations at the end of World War II, the ideological conflict between both the United States and the Soviet Union, the emergence of nuclear weapons, and the fear of communism in the United States.
As World War II transformed both the United States and the USSR, turning the nations into formidable world powers, competition between the two increased. Following the defeat of the Axis powers, an ideological and political rivalry between the United States and the USSR gave way to the start of the Cold War.
The one conflict that brought both side closest to direct war was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The most significant turning point in the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis, tensions between both sides decreased after both sides realized the risk of starting a nuclear war.
The loss of Vietnam was a low point for the West generally and the United States specifically. More than 58,000 American servicemen died in Vietnam, along with more than three million Vietnamese.
John Pilger, journalist. The turning point in the Vietnam War came in early 1968 when the Viet Cong launched a major offensive in South Vietnam.
In August that year, a group called the Viet Minh (short for the ‘League for Vietnamese Independence’) launched a bid for power. The following month their leader, Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed a new state: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Washington would send more than a half-million troops into Vietnam, purportedly to eradicate the Viet Cong and secure South Vietnam from communism.
This led to confrontation and the outbreak of the First Indochina War (1946-54). With their superior weaponry and military experience, the French quickly drove the Viet Minh out of the cities. French forces surrounded a Viet Minh base north of Hanoi and engaged them in battle – but failed to wipe them out.
The Vietnam War was perhaps the best-known and most controversial conflict during the Cold War. This war was waged over control of the entire landmass of Vietnam. It was fought between the United States and its ally South Vietnam, and communist North Vietnam and its guerrilla forces, the Viet Cong.
Abandoned by its American backers, the South Vietnamese government turned tail and fled. Vietnam was reunified under a communist flag and, in 1976, formally became a one-party socialist state.
We are citizens of the richest and most fortunate nation in the history of the world.
In comparing these two sources, it is evident that Nixon had extended upon Johnson's policies regarding the United States economy, where they are both trying to end the "War on Poverty".
The Medicaid Act passed by Lyndon B. Johnson bears incredible resemblance to Barack Obama's legislation of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. These acts are similar in that they try to extend medical and healthcare opportunities for the poor and unfortunate, regardless of race.
Technology, work, and exchange changed more than stayed the same during the Cold War era, after the end of World War II as employment was desegregated and as the United States experienced a postwar prosperity. Continuities from the past periods are continued government intervention within the United States economy with extensions of New Deal policies, increase in military spending, and discrimination of African Americans despite desegregation.
This picture pertains to the theme of technology, work, and exchange as the economy was centered around manufacturing nuclear weapons and munitions during the Cold War, as to fend off the Soviet Union if a war arises.
Johnson, L. B. (1964, March 16). Lyndon B. Johnson: Special Message to the Congress Proposing a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26109
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including ...
During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh —inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism —formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.
By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won.
After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.
Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a “silent majority” of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the training and weapons needed to effectively control the ground war.
By the end of 1967, Hanoi’s communist leadership was growing impatient as well, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the better-supplied United States to give up hopes of success.
In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam.
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was a military conflict between North Vietnam (supported by China and the Soviet Union) and South Vietnam (supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, and several other US allies). It is often described as a proxy war of the Cold War era. It ended with the capture of Saigon, the country’s capital, by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975. The Vietnam War claimed millions of lives. It resulted in the reunification of Vietnam under a communist government and communist prevalence in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. In the United States, which lost more than 50,000 soldiers in the war, mass anti-war protests broke out during the last stage of the conflict.
It is often described as a proxy war of the Cold War era. It ended with the capture of Saigon, the country’s capital, by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975. The Vietnam War claimed millions of lives.
Cold War timeline: 1980 to 1991. This Cold War timeline contains important dates and events from 1980 to 1991. It has been written and compiled by Alpha History authors. If you would like to suggest an event for inclusion here, please contact Alpha History.
Many historians consider this charter to be the de facto peace treaty that ends the Cold War.
January 20th: George Bush is inaugurated as US president , replacing Ronald Reagan.#N#February 15th: The last Soviet troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan.#N#April 15th: The death of Hu Yaobang, a liberal-reformist official in the Chinese Communist Party. Students respond to Hu’s death with large gatherings in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere.#N#April 26th: The People’s Daily, the official state newspaper of communist China, publishes an editorial condemning the growing student demonstrations. The following day up to 100,000 students march through Beijing to Tiananmen Square.#N#May 2nd: The Hungarian government begins tearing down the barbed wire fence along its border with Austria.#N#May 16th: Mikhail Gorbachev makes a landmark visit to China in an attempt to normalise Sino-Soviet relations. Student gatherings, protests and hunger strikes continue during his visit.#N#May 20th: With student protests and calls for democratic reform growing, the communist government in China declares martial law.#N#June 3rd: Chinese military units are sent into Beijing to clear protestors from Tiananmen Square. Over the next 24 hours between 300 and 3,000 protestors are killed.#N#June 5th: Footage of a lone protestor, standing defiantly in front of a column of tanks in Beijing, is beamed around the world. It becomes an iconic image of protest against communist oppression.#N#June 18th: Poland completes two rounds of democratic elections, the country’s first free elections since World War II. Lech Walesa’s Solidarnosc wins 161 in the Polish lower house and almost all of the seats in its Senate.#N#August 24th: Christian-democratic politician Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes prime minister of Poland.#N#October 18th: Hungary adopts a new constitution, allowing for multiple political parties and free elections.#N#October 18th: Erich Honecker is replaced as leader of the East German Communist Party.#N#October 25th: Gorbachev repudiates the Brezhnev Doctrine, the idea that Moscow could intervene in Soviet bloc nations if socialism was perceived to be under threat.#N#November 9th: The East German government announces that it will shortly open checkpoints in Berlin. This triggers the storming and eventual fall of the Berlin Wall.#N#November 20th: More than 200,000 Czechoslovakians gather in Prague to protest against the communist government there. Government leaders resign four days later.#N#December 2nd: Mikhail Gorbachev and US president George Bush begin a two-day summit in Malta. At its conclusion, they proclaim a new era of peace.#N#December 9th: Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa is elected president of Poland.#N#December 25th: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown after 34 years in power. Ceausescu and his wife are swiftly executed.#N#December 29th: Playwright and anti-Soviet dissident Vaclav Havel is elected as the president of Czechoslovakia.
1983. January: Deiter Gerhardt, a former officer in the South African Navy, is arrested for espionage in New York. His Soviet handler, Vitaly Shlykov, is arrested a fortnight later. February 2nd: US president Ronald Reagan hosts a delegation of Afghan mujahideen or freedom fighters in the White House.
March 22nd: Ronald Reagan endorses a joint resolution of Congress, calling on the Soviet Union to “cease its abuses of the basic human rights of its citizens, in particular, the right to freely practice one’s religion and the right to emigrate to another country”.
Smith had earlier written to Andropov, asking if he intended to wage war on America. September 1st: Soviet MiG fighters shoot down a civilian airliner, Korean Air Flight 007, after it overflew Soviet territory. The crash kills all 269 people on board.
The Iran-Iraq War lasts almost eight years and claims up to 600,000 lives, some of them from the use of chemical weapons.