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Cold War

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

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