01 Mar	1950: Communist spy jailed for 14 years
09 Feb	1950: McCarthy launches anti-red crusade
18 May	1950: US and Europe agree Nato aims
25 Jun	1950: UN condemns North Korean invasion
15 Jan	1953: East German purge begins
30 Mar	1951: Rosenbergs guilty of espionage
16 Mar	1953: Marshal Tito makes historic visit to London
18 Feb	1954: McCarthy hunts 'army Communists'
01 Mar	1954: US tests hydrogen bomb in Bikini
02 Dec	1954: US Senate condemns McCarthy
02 Dec	1954: US pledges to defend Nationalist China
09 May	1955: West Germany accepted into Nato
14 May	1955: Communist states sign Warsaw Pact
25 Feb	1956: Khrushchev lashes out at Stalin
23 Oct	1956: Hungarians rise up against Soviet rule
04 Nov	1956: Soviet troops overrun Hungary
15 May	1957: Britain drops its first H-bomb
04 Oct	1957: Sputnik satellite blasts into space
07 Aug	1958: Arthur Miller cleared of contempt
23 Feb	1959: Macmillan and Khrushchev talk peace
24 Jul	1959: Khrushchev and Nixon have war of words
26 Aug	1959: US to 'stand by' West Germans
31 Aug	1959: Anglo-US TV debate makes history
17 May	1960: East-West summit in tatters after spy plane row
19 Aug	1960: Moscow jails American U-2 spy pilot
29 Sep	1960: Khrushchev anger erupts at UN
27 Dec	1960: France explodes third atomic bomb
13 Aug	1961: Berliners wake to divided city
30 Oct	1961: World condemns Russia's nuclear test
10 Feb	1962: Russia frees US spy plane pilot
28 Oct	1962: World relief as Cuban missile crisis ends
21 Dec	1962: America to sell Polaris to Britain
11 May	1963: Moscow jails British 'spy'
26 Jun	1963: Kennedy: 'Ich bin ein Berliner'
14 May	1964: Nasser and Khrushchev divert the Nile
15 Oct	1964: Khrushchev 'retires' as head of USSR
09 Mar	1967: Stalin's daughter defects to the West
21 Aug	1968: Russia brings winter to 'Prague Spring'
24 Jul	1969: Briton freed from Soviet prison
19 Mar	1970: Willi and Willy meet in East Germany
30 Sep	1971: Foreign Office names Soviet superspy
22 May	1972: President Nixon arrives in Moscow
24 Jun	1974: Labour rift over nuclear test
18 Jun	1979: Leaders agree arms reduction treaty
22 Jan	1980: Soviet dissident Sakharov banished
10 Nov	1982: Brezhnev rumours sweep Moscow
23 Mar	1983: Reagan launches Cold War into space
01 Sep	1983: Korean airliner 'shot down'
08 May	1984: Moscow pulls out of US Olympics
16 Dec	1984: Gorbachev visit to Britain a 'success'
23 Aug	1985: West German spy chief defects to East
28 Aug	1985: East Germans charged with espionage
18 Sep	1987: Superpower treaty to scrap warheads
23 Sep	1987: Ban lifted on MI5 man's memoirs
13 Sep	1988: Cubans blame shooting on 'CIA plot'
16 Jun	1989: Hungary reburies fallen hero Imre Nagy
07 Nov	1989: Protests force out East German rulers
09 Nov	1989: Berliners celebrate the fall of the Wall
03 Dec	1989: Malta summit ends Cold War
22 Dec	1989: Brandenburg Gate re-opens
31 Jul	1991: Superpowers to cut nuclear warheads
25 Aug	1997: East German leader guilty of Berlin Wall deaths