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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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