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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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