History — The United States versus the USSR, 1947-1991
Revise the Cold War: the two blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the space race and the fall of the USSR. Multiple-choice exam for secondary school.
After the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union went from allies to rivals. The United States stood for capitalism and liberal democracy; the USSR for communism with a planned economy. Europe was divided by the 'Iron Curtain'. The United States launched the Truman Doctrine to contain communism and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, and Germany split into two states.
Each bloc created its own military alliance: NATO in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The superpowers never fought each other directly for fear of nuclear war, but they clashed in wars in other countries, such as Korea and Vietnam, and in the arms and space races. The tensest moments were the building of the Berlin Wall (1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).
By the 1980s the Soviet economy had stagnated. Gorbachev tried to reform it with perestroika and glasnost, but the Eastern countries gradually abandoned communism. The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, Germany reunified in 1990 and in December 1991 the USSR dissolved into fifteen republics.
History · Secondary, Sixth Form
Capitalism versus communism, NATO versus the Warsaw Pact: the basis for understanding every crisis of the period.
The Berlin Blockade, Korea, the Wall and the Cuban missiles, in order and explained so the dates don't get mixed up.
Gorbachev, the fall of the Wall and the dissolution of the USSR: why it ended and what world it left behind.
"For example, one question asks for the year the Berlin Wall fell and also offers 1991. The explanation separates the two dates: the Wall fell in 1989 and the USSR disappeared two years later."
Tricks and techniques to master this topic faster:
'Cold' because the superpowers did not fight each other directly, though there were wars in other countries.
NATO, 1949; Warsaw Pact, 1955.
Berlin Wall: built in 1961 and torn down in 1989.
The end: the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991.
If you are studying The Cold War, these curriculum topics complement each other:
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