Pre- 1955

• Soviet liberation of Romania and Bulgaria- Communist-dominated governments set up by 1947


  August -September 1944
• Stalin and Churchill meet in Moscow for the percentages agreement and agreed to divide postwar Europe, into spheres of influence


  October 1944
• The Yalta conference. Disagreements about reparations, the UN, promise on free elections in Poland


  February 1945
• VE day, Germany surrenders to the allies, Soviets have suffered immensely in the war

  8th of May 1945
• The Potsdam conference. No ACC meant little overall government for Germany, still disagreements over German reparations. Soviets arrest 16 non communists in Poland


  July to August 1945
• Atomic bombs dropped. 6th and 9th August 1945. Soviets worked to create their own atomic bomb 1942 to 49
• Formation of SED in Soviet German zone, moderate social democrats expelled, hardline communists retained


  February 1946
• Disagreements with reparations, the Soviets wanted heavier reparations, the US and UK advocated moderate reparations


  1946
• Bizonia comes into existence Soviets fear. This is a step towards establishing a separate Western-dominated German state


  January 1947
• Truman doctrine- foreign policy of containing the spread of communism


  12th of March 1949
• Marshall plan announced- 14 billion dollars loaned to support 'free' countries. aid went to 17 countries, including the UK, Western Germany, France and Italy. Soviets forbade Eastern block nations from accepting marshall aid


  June 1947
• Cominform was formed-Publishes anti marshall aid propaganda in Eastern block countries, which branded marshall aid as 'dollar diplomacy'


  September 1947
• Communist seizure of power, in Prague

  22nd of February 1948
• Communist seizure of power in Prague

  Powerful factor in persuading France to join the alliance system against the USSR and Germany
• Brussels Pact


  Aimed to draw Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg into an arrangement for collective security
• NATO was formed

  April 4th 1949
• The North Atlantic treaty was signed by 12 nations in Washington DC
• The FRG entered NATO may 1955
• The GDR joined the warsaw pact in January 1956 following the ussr and eastern European states signing the pact in May 1955
• 1962 USA built a strategic bomber- boeng b52 stratofortress.
• First series for thermonuclear tests in November 1952. It yielded an energy equivalent of 10 megaton of tnt
• On August 12 1953 society Union tested fist Russian h bomb. While not nearly as powerful as the American bomb, it was usable, small enough to be dropped from an airplane
• Berlin airlift 1948: stalin surrounded west Berlin, allies responded with greatest humanitarian effort in the war
• Nikita krushchev demanded Western allies withdraw from Berlin after stalins death in 1953
• Riots of East berliners against the Soviets happened in East Berlin in June 1953