Stalin
Josef Stalin was born in December 18 1878. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. He gained power after Lenin’s death in 1924. In 1939, the Soviet Union under Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, Germany violated the pact in 1941, and this is where Hitler and Stalin made their connection in history. After this violation Stalin joined his army with the allies. When Stalin died Nikita Khrushchev gained power of the Soviet Union.
Berlin History
Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany, The earliest evidence of settlements in today's Berlin central areas is a wooden beam dated from approximately 1192.In the end of World War I in 1918, the Weimar Republic, the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, was proclaimed in Berlin. On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. Nazi rule destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which had numbered 170,000 before 1933. After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin. On 3 October 1990 the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin became the German capital according to the unification treaty. In Berlin is where Hitler committed suicide ending the world war. It was also a great fact during the cold war since the two opponents, communists and democrats were divided, literally, by a line.
Mao Tse-tung
Mao Tse-tung was born December 26, 1893, in Shao-shan, Hunan province. He was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. Under Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese Communist Party membership rose from 40,000 members in 1937 to 1,200,000 members in 1945. After the end of W.W.11, the united front split and civil war erupted. The Chinese Communist Party came to power and Chiang's government was forced to flee to Taiwan. When the United States challenge Mao Tse-tung, China developed a close alliance with the USSR. During the early 1950s, Mao Tse-tung served as chairman of the Communist party, chief of state, and chairman of the military commission. During the Cultural Revolution Mao's sayings, printed in a little red book, and buttons bearing his image were distributed. Mao Tse-tung died in Peking on September 9, 1976.
Korean War
The Korean war was a conflict between North Korea, under the power of Kim Il Sung, and South Korea. This happened in 1950 when the north part of Korea started Invading the south part. This triggered the American government and sent troops to Korea; The North American army was under the power of Truman. The war ended in 1953 with the retreat of north Korean army. This would make diplomatic problems between North Korea and United States. This will be reflected in the Cold War.
Kim Il Sung
He was born April 15 of 1912, headed North Korea's government from 1948 until his death in 1994. In 1950 he was the responsible of the Korean war. After this in 1968 the U.S.S. Pueblo was intercepted on a spying mission in North Korean waters, Kim managed to embarrass the United States by imprisoning the crew for 11 months. In 1993, with nuclear material in his country, possibly a bomb or even two, Kim announced that North Korea would withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (a treaty against nuclear weapons). On a visit to North Korea, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter managed to ease tensions, and new United Nations talks had begun when Kim Il-sung died July 8, 1994, in Korea, of an apparent heart attack. He had connections with the Russian government and also was a key part in the United States history.
Arbenz, Armas, and the CIA
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala. The reason of that plan was because Arbenz's government was seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants, that the U.S. intelligence community deemed Communist in nature and, suspecting Soviet influence, fueled a fear of Guatemala becoming what Allen Dulles described as a "Soviet base in the western hemisphere". This led to CIA support for Castillo, who was a guerrilla leader in Guatemala, and his army. In 1954, they invaded Guatemala, forcing Árbenz to resign in favor of Carlos Enrique Díaz.
Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro
These three characters were all protagonist of the Cuban missiles crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States (Kennedy, the Soviet Union (Khrushchev), and Cuba (Castro) in October 1962, during the Cold War In September 1962, the Cuban government saw significant evidence that the U.S. would invade Cuba if American interests were threatened, As a consequence, Castro and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to secretly place strategic nuclear missiles in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a U.S. invasion of Cuba was imminent, and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the spread of communism, especially in Latin America. He said that he wanted to confront the Americans "with more than words...the logical answer was missiles. On October 28, 1962, when the President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with the Soviets to dismantle the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a no-invasion agreement, the crisis ended.
Domino Theory
The domino theory was a foreign policy act, promoted by the government of the United States, which speculated that if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect.
