talwabatal - butterfly 1946

Mao Zedong

[a] (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao was the son of a prosperous peasant in Shaoshan, Hunan. He supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University as a librarian and became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land reform policies, and ultimately became head of the CCP during the Long March. Although the CCP temporarily allied with the KMT under the Second United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender, and Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan in 1949.

On 1 October 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the PRC, a Marxist–Leninist single-party state controlled by the CCP. In the following years he solidified his control through the Chinese Land Reform against landlords, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, the "Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns", and through a truce in the Korean War, which altogether resulted in the deaths of several million Chinese. From 1953 to 1958, Mao played an important role in enforcing command economy in China, constructing the first Constitution of the PRC, launching the industrialisation program, and initiating military projects such as the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project and Project 523. His foreign policies during this time were dominated by the Sino-Soviet split which drove a wedge between China and the Soviet Union. In 1955, Mao launched the Sufan movement, and in 1957 he launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which at least 550,000 people, mostly intellectuals and dissidents, were persecuted.[2] In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, and in 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle, widespread destruction of cultural artifacts, and an unprecedented elevation of Mao's cult of personality. Tens of millions of people were persecuted during the Revolution, while the estimated number of deaths ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. During Mao's era, China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million while the government did not strictly enforce its family planning policy.

Widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, Mao remains a controversial figure within and outside China. Beyond politics, Mao is also known as a theorist, military strategist, and poet. Mao has been praised for transforming China from a semi-colony to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education and life expectancy.[3][4][5][6] The government during Mao's rule was also responsible for vast numbers of deaths, with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions.[7][8][9][10] During his leadership tenure, China was heavily involved with other Asian communist conflicts such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cambodian Civil War, which brought the Khmer Rouge to power.

1946

The "X Article"

is an article, formally titled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", written by George F. Kennan and published under the pseudonym "X" in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. The article widely introduced the term "containment" and advocated for its strategic use against the Soviet Union. The piece expanded on ideas expressed by Kennan in a confidential February 1946 telegram, formally identified by Kennan's State Department number, "511", but informally dubbed the "long telegram" for its size.

Kennan composed the long telegram to respond to inquiries about the implications of a February 1946 speech by Joseph Stalin.[note 1] Though the speech was in line with previous statements by Stalin, it provoked fear in the American press and public; Time magazine called it "the most warlike pronouncement uttered by any top-rank statesman since V-J Day".[4] The long telegram explained Soviet motivations by recounting the history of Russian rulers as well as the ideology of Marxism–Leninism. It argued that the Soviet leaders used the ideology to characterize the external world as hostile, allowing them to justify their continued hold on power despite a lack of popular support. Washington bureaucrats quickly read the confidential message and accepted it as the best explanation of Soviet behavior. The reception elevated Kennan's reputation within the State Department as one of the government's foremost Soviet experts.

After hearing Kennan speak about Soviet foreign relations at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 1947, international banker R. Gordon Wasson suggested that he share his views in an article for Foreign Affairs. Kennan revised a piece he had submitted to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in late-January 1947, but his role in government precluded him from publishing under his name. His superiors granted him approval to publish the piece provided it was released anonymously; Foreign Affairs attributed the article only to "X". Expressing similar sentiments to that of the long telegram, the piece was strong in its anti-communism, introducing and outlining a basic theory of containment. The article was widely read; though it does not mention the Truman Doctrine, having mostly been written before Truman's speech, it quickly became seen as an expression of the doctrine's policy. Retrospective commentators dispute the impact of the article; Henry Kissinger referred to it as "the diplomatic doctrine of the era",[5] while some historians write that its impact in shaping governmental policy has been overstated.

Joseph Stalin speaking at the Bolshoi Theatre, February 9, 1946. Kennan's long telegram began as an analysis of the speech.

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal (left) was largely responsible for the spread of the "long telegram", extending its readership to US President Harry S. Truman (right), amongst others.

R. Gordon Wasson encouraged Kennan to write an article for Foreign Affairs after hearing him speak to the Council on Foreign Relations at the Harold Pratt House (pictured) in January 1947.

George F. Kennan in 1947, the same year Foreign Affairs published his piece "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" under the pseudonym "X".

United States Information Service propaganda poster distributed in Asia depicting Juan dela Cruz ready to defend the Philippines from the threat of communism.

James Forrestal 1st United States Secretary of Defense

Joseph Stalin, Harry S. Truman, and Winston Churchill in Potsdam, July 1945

On the desk is George F. Kennan's newly published book, Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, shown here at the Atomic Energy Commission in Oak Ridge in 1961.

A 1962 nuclear explosion as seen through the periscope of a US Navy submarine. The goal of containment was to 'contain' communism without a nuclear war.

1946

Containment

was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The name was loosely related to the term cordon sanitaire, which was containment of the Soviet Union in the interwar period.

As a component of the Cold War, this policy caused a response from the Soviet Union to increase communist influence in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Containment represented a middle-ground position between détente (relaxation of relations) and rollback (actively replacing a regime). The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan during the post-World War II term of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. As a description of U.S. foreign policy, the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to US Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, which was later used in a magazine article.

1947

The Truman Doctrine

is an American foreign policy that pledges American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats."[1] The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947,[2] and further developed on July 4, 1948, when he pledged to contain the communist uprisings in Greece and Turkey. More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Moscow. It became the foundation of American foreign policy, and led, in 1949, to the formation of NATO, a military alliance that still exists. Historians often use Truman's speech to date the start of the Cold War.[3]

Truman told Congress that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[4] Truman contended that because totalitarian regimes coerced free peoples, they automatically represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States. Truman argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid, they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region.

The Truman Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world.[5] It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from a wartime alliance to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion, as advocated by diplomat George Kennan. It was distinguished from rollback by implicitly tolerating the previous Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe.

1947

The Cold War

was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945.[2] Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First World nations that were generally liberal democratic but tied to a network of often Third World authoritarian states, most of which were the European powers' former colonies.[3][B] The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The Soviet Union had a command economy and installed similarly totalitarian regimes in its satellite states. The US government supported anti-communist and right-wing governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states achieved independence in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War.

The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of World War II in 1945. The United States and its Western European allies sought to strengthen their bonds and used the policy of containment against Soviet influence; they accomplished this most notably through the formation of NATO which was essentially a defensive agreement in 1949. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc. As by 1955 the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states, the pact has been long considered "superfluous".[4][5] Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard the Soviet Union's hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away.[6] In 1961, Soviet-dominated East Germany constructed the Berlin Wall to prevent the citizens of East Berlin from fleeing to free and prosperous West Berlin (part of US-allied West Germany).[7] Major crises of this phase included the 1948–1949 Berlin Blockade, the 1945–1949 Chinese Communist Revolution, the 1950–1953 Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1961 Berlin Crisis, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and the 1964–1975 Vietnam War. The US and the USSR competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split between China and the Soviet Union complicate relations within the communist sphere, leading to a series of border confrontations, while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the 1968 Prague Spring, while the US experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the 1960s–1970s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around the world. Movements against nuclear weapons testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large anti-war protests. By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the USSR. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua.

Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s was another period of elevated tension. The United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when it was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness", c. 1985) and perestroika ("reorganization", 1987) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to militarily support the communist governments any longer.

In 1989, the fall of the Iron Curtain after the Pan-European Picnic and a peaceful wave of revolutions (with the exception of Romania and Afghanistan) overthrew almost all of the Marxist-Leninist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control in the country and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the collapse of communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while all of the other republics emerged from the USSR's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states.[8] The United States was left as the world's sole superpower.

The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy. It is often referred to in popular culture, especially with themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare. For subsequent history, see international relations since 1989.

Nuclear weapon test Mike (yield 10.4 Mt) on Enewetak Atoll. The test was part of the Operation Ivy. Mike was the first hydrogen bomb ever tested, an experimental device not suitable for use as a weapon.

The labeling used on the Marshall Plan economic aid to Western Europe

With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-46 tank, at Haengju, Korea. NWDNS-80-G-429691. War and Conflict #1485.

From left to right, the Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confer in Tehran, 1943

Clement Attlee, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, 1945

East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall.

Construction in West Berlin under Marshall Plan aid

American C-47s unloading at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin during the Berlin Blockade

President Truman signs the North Atlantic Treaty with guests in the Oval Office.

Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin in Moscow, December 1949

General Douglas MacArthur, UN Command CiC (seated), observes the naval shelling of Incheon, Korea from USS Mt. McKinley, 15 September 1950.

Titan nuclear missile, in use from 1959 until 1962

NATO and Warsaw Pact troop strengths in Europe in 1959

From left to right: Soviet head of state Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and Finnish president Urho Kekkonen at Moscow in 1960

Che Guevara (left) and Fidel Castro (right) in 1961

1961 Russian stamp commemorating Patrice Lumumba, assassinated prime minister of the Republic of the Congo

Soviet and American tanks face each other at Checkpoint Charlie during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Aerial photograph of a Soviet missile site in Cuba, taken by a US spy aircraft, 1 November 1962

US combat operations during the Battle of Ia Drang, South Vietnam, November 1965

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference.

Mao Zedong and US President Richard Nixon, during his visit in China

The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968 was one of the biggest military operations on European soil since World War II.

Nikolai Podgorny visiting Tampere, Finland on 16 October 1969

NATO and Warsaw Pact troop strengths in Europe in 1973

S75-29432 (17 July 1975) --- Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford (in foreground) and cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov make their historic handshake in space on July 17, 1975 during the joint U.S.-USSR Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) docking mission in Earth orbit. This picture was reproduced from a frame of 16mm motion picture film. The American and Soviet spacecraft were joined together in space for approximately 47 hours on July 17th, 18th, 19th, 1975. The Apollo crew consisted of astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, commander; Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, docking module pilot; Vance D. Brand, command module pilot. The Soyuz 19 crew consisted of cosmonauts Aleksei A. Leonov, command pilot; and Valeri N. Kubasov, flight engineer.

Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat with Henry Kissinger in 1975

A simplified map of the Cold War alliances between May and August of 1975. The Russian and Chinese blocs are grouped together as one for illustrative purposes, but note that historically they were not allied during the time represented. The grey region does not represent an alliance, but rather encompasses all countries that were not aligned with the Soviet Union, the USA, or China. This map is based on File:First second third worlds map.svg, but it is modified to display a grouping of countries that is verifiable and accurately reflects the caption of Three Worlds. Rationale: Western-aligned: NATO member states Military alliances with NATO member states CENTO member states Five Power Defence Arrangements Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance Mutual Defense Treaty (United States–South Korea) SEATO member states Simonstown Agreement Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty Thanat–Rusk Communiqué Treaty of London US–Israel Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement US-Japan alliance Associated states of NATO member states Eastern-aligned: Warsaw Pact member states Military alliances with Warsaw Pact member states Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance Hostile to the west Cuba Ethiopia Mongolia North Korea Somalia South Yemen Syria Vietnam

Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet shaking hands with Henry Kissinger in 1976

Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and US President Jimmy Carter sign the SALT II arms limitation treaty in Vienna on 18 June 1979.

The Soviet invasion during Operation Storm-333 on 26 December 1979

Protest in Amsterdam against the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe, 1981

President Reagan publicizes his support by meeting with Afghan mujahideen leaders in the White House, 1983.

President Reagan with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during a working luncheon at Camp David, December 1984

After ten-year-old American Samantha Smith wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov expressing her fear of nuclear war, Andropov invited Smith to the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President Ronald Reagan

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan sign the INF Treaty at the White House, 1987.

"Tear down this wall!" speech: Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate, 12 June 1987

On 12 February 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Yorktown, while exercising the "right of innocent passage" for a spy mission in Soviet territorial waters, was rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetniy (collision pictured) with the intention of pushing the Yorktown into international waters. This action has been called "the last incident of the Cold War". Service Depicted: Multi-National The SOVIET Krivak I class guided MISSILE frigate BEZZAVETNY (FFG 811) impacts the guided MISSILE cruiser USS YORKTOWN (CG 48) as the American ship exercises the right of free passage through the SOVIET-claimed 12-mile territorial waters.

East German dictator Erich Honecker lost control in August 1989.

The human chain in Lithuania during the Baltic Way, 23 August 1989

Delta 183 launch vehicle lifts off, carrying the Strategic Defense Initiative sensor experiment "Delta Star".

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. The photo shows a part of a public photo documentation wall at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. The photo documentation is permanently placed in the public.

The beginning of the 1990s brought a thaw in relations between the superpowers.

August Coup in Moscow, 1991

The first Russian McDonald's on Moscow's Pushkin Square, pictured in 1991

Changes in national boundaries after the end of the Cold War

European military alliances

European economic blocs

Post-war territorial changes in Europe and the formation of the Eastern Bloc, the so-called "Iron Curtain"

Otto von Habsburg, who played a leading role in opening the Iron Curtain

Destroyed statue of Lenin in Zhytomyr on 21 February 2014 during the Euromaidan protests

During the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot, 1.5 to 2 million people died due to the policies of his four-year premiership.

Since the end of the Cold War, the EU has expanded eastwards into the former Warsaw Pact and parts of the former Soviet Union.

Nelson Rolihlahla

Mandela

(/mænˈdɛlə/;[1] Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state.

Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand healthcare services. Internationally, Mandela acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as secretary-general of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Globally regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation".

1948

Apartheid

(/əˈpɑːrt(h)aɪt/, especially South African English: /əˈpɑːrt(h)eɪt/, Afrikaans: [aˈpartɦɛit]; transl. "separateness", lit. 'aparthood') was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s.[note 1] Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (lit. 'boss-hood' or 'boss-ship'), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically through minoritarianism by the nation's dominant minority white population.[4] According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then black Africans.[4] The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.[5][6][7][better source needed]

Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid, which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and grand apartheid, which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race.[8] The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, followed closely by the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines.[9] The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, and cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", and "Indian", the last two of which included several sub-classifications.[10] Places of residence were determined by racial classification.[9] Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods as a result of apartheid legislation, in some of the largest mass evictions in modern history.[11] Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the black population to ten designated "tribal homelands", also known as bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states.[9] The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans.[8]

Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the 20th century.[12] It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations and brought about extensive international sanctions, including arms embargoes and economic sanctions on South Africa.[13] During the 1970s and 1980s, internal resistance to apartheid became increasingly militant, prompting brutal crackdowns by the National Party ruling government and protracted sectarian violence that left thousands dead or in detention.[14] Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups.[15]

Between 1987 and 1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the African National Congress (ANC), the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule.[15][16] In 1990, prominent ANC figures such as Nelson Mandela were released from prison.[17] Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991,[2] leading to multiracial elections in April 1994.[18]

Annual per capita personal income by race group in South Africa relative to white levels.

Sign from the Apartheid era in South Africa: FOR USE BY WHITE PERSONS. THESE PUBLIC PREMISES AND THE AMENITIES THEREOF HAVE BEEN RESERVED FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF WHITE PERSONS. By Order Provincial Secretary

Cape Coloured children in Bonteheuwel

D. F. Malan, the first apartheid-era prime minister (1948–1954)

Hendrik Verwoerd, minister of native affairs (1950–1958) and prime minister (1958–1966), earned the nickname 'Architect of Apartheid' from his large role in creating legislation.

Apartheid-era propaganda leaflet issued to South African military personnel in the 1980s. The pamphlet decries "Russian colonialism and oppression" in English, Afrikaans and Portuguese.

South African paratroops on a raid in Angola, 1980s

London bus in 1989 carrying the "Boycott Apartheid" message.

"Reserved for the sole use of members of the white race group" sign in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu at a beach in Durban, 1989

de Klerk and Mandela in Davos, 1992

The new multicoloured flag of South Africa adopted in 1994 to mark the end of Apartheid

Berliners watching a C-54 land at Berlin Tempelhof Airport, 1948.

The only three permissible air corridors to Berlin

The red area of Germany (above) is Soviet controlled East Germany. German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line (light beige) was ceded to Poland, while a portion of the easternmost section of Germany East Prussia, Königsberg, was annexed by the USSR, as the Kaliningrad Oblast.

Sectors of divided Berlin

C-47 Skytrains unloading at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift

Loading milk on a West Berlin-bound aircraft

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster dropping candy over Berlin, c. 1948/49

A C-74 Globemaster plane at Gatow airfield on 19 August with more than 20 tons of flour from the United States

An RAF Short Sunderland moored on the Havel near Berlin unloading salt during the airlift

US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen, who pioneered the idea of dropping candy bars and bubble gum with handmade miniature parachutes, which later became known as "Operation Little Vittles"

C-54s stand out against the snow at Wiesbaden Air Base during the Berlin Airlift in the Winter of 1948–49

Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof, displaying the names of the 39 British and 31 American airmen who lost their lives during the operation. Similar monuments are located at the military airfield of Wietzenbruch near the former RAF Celle and at Rhein-Main Air Base.

1948

The Berlin Blockade

(24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

The Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift (German: Berliner Luftbrücke, lit. '"Berlin Air Bridge"') from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city and the population.[1][2] American and British air forces flew over Berlin more than 250,000 times, dropping necessities such as fuel and food, with the original plan being to lift 3,475 tons of supplies daily. By the spring of 1949, that number was often met twofold, with the peak daily delivery totalling 12,941 tons.[3] Among these, candy-dropping aircraft dubbed "raisin bombers" generated much goodwill among German children.[4]

Having initially concluded there was no way the airlift could work, the Soviets found its continued success an increasing embarrassment. On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, due to economic issues in East Berlin, although for a time the Americans and British continued to supply the city by air as they were worried that the Soviets would resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt western supply lines. The Berlin Airlift officially ended on 30 September 1949 after fifteen months. The US Air Force had delivered 1,783,573 tons (76.4% of total) and the RAF 541,937 tons (23.3% of total),[nb 1] totalling 2,334,374 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on 278,228 flights to Berlin. In addition Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African air crews assisted the RAF during the blockade.[5]: 338 The French also supported but only to provide for their military garrison.[6]

American C-47 and C-54 transport airplanes, together, flew over 92,000,000 miles (148,000,000 km) in the process, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun.[7] British transports, including Handley Page Haltons and Short Sunderlands, flew as well. At the height of the Airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.[8]

Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the operation.[9] A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans,[8] mostly due to non-flying accidents.

The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe. It played a major role in aligning West Berlin with the United States and Britain as the major protecting powers,[10] and in drawing West Germany into the NATO orbit several years later in 1955.

1949

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949.[3][4] NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber [5] (Latin for "a mind unfettered in deliberation").

NATO's main headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, while NATO's military headquarters are near Mons, Belgium. The alliance has targeted its NATO Response Force deployments in Eastern Europe, and the combined militaries of all NATO members include around 3.5 million soldiers and personnel.[6] Their combined military spending as of 2020 constituted over 57 percent of the global nominal total.[7] Moreover, members have agreed to reach or maintain the target defence spending of at least two percent of their GDP by 2024.[8][9]

NATO formed with twelve founding members and has added new members eight times, most recently when North Macedonia joined the alliance in March 2020. Following the acceptance of their applications for membership in June 2022, Finland and Sweden are anticipated to become the 31st and 32nd members, with their Accession Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty now in the process of being ratified by the existing members.[10] In addition, NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members.[3] Enlargement has led to tensions with non-member Russia, one of the twenty additional countries participating in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. Another nineteen countries are involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes with NATO.

Mao Zedong proclaiming the foundation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

Flag of the People's Republic of China

1949

The founding of the People's Republic of China

was formally proclaimed by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on October 1, 1949, at 3:00 pm in Tiananmen Square in Peking, now Beijing (formerly Beiping), the new capital of China. The formation of the Central People's Government under the leadership of the CCP, the government of the new state, was officially proclaimed during the proclamation speech by the chairman at the founding ceremony.

Previously, the CCP had proclaimed the establishment of a soviet republic within discontiguous rebel-held territories of China not under Nationalist control, the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) on November 7, 1931, in Ruijin, Jiangxi with the support of the Soviet Union. The CSR lasted seven years until it was abolished in 1937.

The new national anthem of China March of the Volunteers was played for the first time, the new national flag of the People's Republic of China (the Five-starred Red Flag) was officially unveiled to the newly founded nation and hoisted for the first time during the celebrations as a 21-gun salute fired in the distance. The first public military parade of the then new People's Liberation Army took place following the national flag raising with the playing of the PRC national anthem.

The Republic of China had retreated to the island of Taiwan by December 1949.

1950

The Korean War

(also known by other names) was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea.[33][34][35] North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United States and allied countries. The fighting ended with an armistice on 27 July 1953.

In 1910, Imperial Japan annexed Korea, where it ruled for 35 years until its surrender at the end of World War II on 15 August 1945.[c] The United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea along the 38th parallel into two zones of occupation. The Soviets administered the northern zone and the Americans administered the southern zone. In 1948, as a result of Cold War tensions, the occupation zones became two sovereign states. A socialist state, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was established in the north under the totalitarian communist leadership of Kim Il-sung, while a capitalist state, the Republic of Korea, was established in the south under the autocratic leadership of Syngman Rhee. Both governments of the two new Korean states claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent.

North Korean military (Korean People's Army, KPA) forces crossed the border and drove into South Korea on 25 June 1950.[36] Joseph Stalin had final decision power and several times demanded North Korea postpone the invasion, until he gave final approval in spring 1950.[37] The United Nations Security Council denounced the North Korean move as an invasion and authorized the formation of the United Nations Command and the dispatch of forces to Korea [38] to repel it.[39][40] The Soviet Union was boycotting the UN for recognizing Taiwan (Republic of China) as China,[41] and the People's Republic of China was not recognized by the UN, so neither could support their ally North Korea at the Security Council meeting. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel.[42]

After the first two months of war, the South Korean Army (ROKA) and hastily dispatched American forces were on the point of defeat, retreating to a small area behind a defensive line known as the Pusan Perimeter. In September 1950, a risky amphibious UN counteroffensive was launched at Incheon, cutting off KPA troops and supply lines in South Korea. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were forced back north. UN forces invaded North Korea in October 1950 and moved rapidly towards the Yalu River—the border with China—but on 19 October 1950, Chinese forces of the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war.[36] The UN retreated from North Korea after the First Phase Offensive and the Second Phase Offensive. Chinese forces were in South Korea by late December.

In these and subsequent battles, Seoul was captured four times, and communist forces were pushed back to positions around the 38th parallel, close to where the war had started. After this, the front stabilized, and the last two years were a war of attrition. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive U.S. bombing campaign. Jet-powered fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies.

The fighting ended on 27 July 1953 when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war, engaged in a frozen conflict.[43][44] In April 2018, the leaders of North and South Korea met at the DMZ[45] and agreed to work toward a treaty to end the Korean War formally.[46]

The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War. It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities, thousands of massacres by both sides, including the mass killing of tens of thousands of suspected communists by the South Korean government, and the torture and starvation of prisoners of war by the North Koreans. North Korea became among the most heavily bombed countries in history.[47] 1.5 million North Koreans are estimated to have fled North Korea over the course of the war.[48]

1950

The Battle of Incheon

(Korean: 인천상륙작전; Hanja: 仁川上陸作戰; RR: Incheon Sangnyuk Jakjeon), also spelled Battle of Inchon, was an amphibious invasion and a battle of the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations Command (UN). The operation involved some 75,000 troops and 261 naval vessels and led to the recapture of the South Korean capital of Seoul two weeks later.[4] The code name for the operation was Operation Chromite.

The battle began on 15 September 1950 and ended on 19 September. Through a surprise amphibious assault far from the Pusan Perimeter that UN and Republic of Korea Army (ROK) forces were desperately defending, the largely undefended city of Incheon was secured after being bombed by UN forces. The battle ended a string of victories by the North Korean Korean People's Army (KPA). The subsequent UN recapture of Seoul partially severed the KPA's supply lines in South Korea.

The UN and ROK forces were commanded by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of the United States Army. MacArthur was the driving force behind the operation, overcoming the strong misgivings of more cautious generals to a risky assault over extremely unfavorable terrain. The battle was followed by a rapid collapse of the KPA; within a month of the Incheon landing, the Americans had taken 135,000 KPA troops prisoner.[5]

Douglas MacArthur

(26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s, and he played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times, and received it for his service in the Philippines campaign. This made him along with his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.

Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur was valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy where he finished high school, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times.

From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted a series of reforms. His next assignment was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny. In 1925, he became the Army's youngest major general. He served on the court-martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the American Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C., in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1935 he became Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1937 and continued being the chief military advisor to the Philippines.

MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air forces on 8 December 1941 and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left nearby Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia, where MacArthur became supreme commander, Southwest Pacific Area. Upon his arrival, MacArthur gave a speech in which he promised "I shall return" to the Philippines. After more than two years of fighting, he fulfilled that promise. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor. He officially accepted the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, which was anchored in Tokyo Bay, and he oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War with initial success; however, the invasion of North Korea provoked the Chinese, causing a series of major defeats. MacArthur was contentiously removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He later became chairman of the board of Remington Rand. He died in Washington, D.C., on 5 April 1964 at the age of 84.

1954

The Algerian War

(also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence)[nb 1] was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (French: Front de Libération Nationale – FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France.[30] An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities.[31] The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.

Effectively started by members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) on 1 November 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day"), the conflict led to serious political crises in France, causing the fall of the Fourth Republic (1946–58), to be replaced by the Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. The brutality of the methods employed by the French forces failed to win hearts and minds in Algeria, alienated support in metropolitan France, and discredited French prestige abroad.[32][33] As the war dragged on, the French public slowly turned against it[34] and many of France's key allies, including the United States, switched from supporting France to abstaining in the UN debate on Algeria.[35] After major demonstrations in Algiers and several other cities in favor of independence (1960)[36][37] and a United Nations resolution recognizing the right to independence,[38] Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the Fifth Republic, decided to open a series of negotiations with the FLN. These concluded with the signing of the Évian Accords in March 1962. A referendum took place on 8 April 1962 and the French electorate approved the Évian Accords. The final result was 91% in favor of the ratification of this agreement[39] and on 1 July, the Accords were subject to a second referendum in Algeria, where 99.72% voted for independence and just 0.28% against.[40]

The planned French withdrawal led to a state crisis. This included various assassination attempts on de Gaulle as well as some attempts at military coups. Most of the former were carried out by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), an underground organization formed mainly from French military personnel supporting a French Algeria, which committed a large number of bombings and murders both in Algeria and in the homeland to stop the planned independence.

The war caused the deaths of between 300,000 and 1,500,000 Algerians,[41][25][23] 25,600 French soldiers,[17]: 538 and 6,000 Europeans. War crimes committed during the war included massacres of civilians, rape, and torture; the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps.[42][43] Upon independence in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians (Pieds-noirs) fled to France within a few months in fear of the FLN's revenge. The French government was unprepared to receive such a vast number of refugees, which caused turmoil in France. The majority of Algerian Muslims who had worked for the French were disarmed and left behind, as the agreement between French and Algerian authorities declared that no actions could be taken against them.[44] However, the Harkis in particular, having served as auxiliaries with the French army, were regarded as traitors and many were murdered by the FLN or by lynch mobs, often after being abducted and tortured.[17]: 537 [45] About 90,000 managed to flee to France,[46] some with help from their French officers acting against orders, and today they and their descendants form a significant part of the Algerian-French population.

1955

The Warsaw Pact

(WP),[3] formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance,[4] was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant defensive alliance, the Warsaw Treaty Organization[5] (WTO). The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the regional economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc.[15][16] There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs.[16] The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations except Albania and Romania),[15] which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than one month later. The pact began to unravel with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland,[17] its electoral success in June 1989 and the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989.[18]

East Germany withdrew from the pact following German reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the pact was declared at an end by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states. The USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. In the following 20 years, the Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO (East Germany through its reunification with West Germany; and the Czech Republic and Slovakia as separate countries), as did the Baltic states which had been occupied by the Soviet Union.

The Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, where the Warsaw Pact was established and signed on 14 May 1955.

Conference during which the Pact was established and signed.

A typical Soviet military jeep UAZ-469, used by most countries of the Warsaw Pact

A "Soviet Big Seven" threats poster, displaying the equipment of the militaries of the Warsaw Pact

Meeting of the seven representatives of the Warsaw Pact countries in East Berlin in May 1987. From left to right: Gustáv Husák (Czechoslovakia), Todor Zhivkov (Bulgaria), Erich Honecker (East Germany), Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union), Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania), Wojciech Jaruzelski (Poland), and János Kádár (Hungary)

Soviet tanks, marked with white crosses to distinguish them from Czechoslovak tanks,[69] on the streets of Prague during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968

Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev (left) served as the first Supreme Commander of the Pact (1955–1960) while Army General Aleksei Antonov served as the first Chief of Combined Staff of the Pact (1955–1962).

The Warsaw Pact before its 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, showing the Soviet Union and its satellites (red) and the two independent non-Soviet members: Romania and Albania (pink)

A Romanian TR-85 tank in December 1989 (Romania's TR-85 and TR-580 tanks were the only non-Soviet tanks in the Warsaw Pact on which restrictions were placed under the 1990 CFE Treaty[90])

The Romanian IAR-93 Vultur was the only combat jet designed and built by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact.[97]

Josip Broz Tito, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, pioneers of the Non-Aligned Movement

Current members of the Non-Aligned Movement. The light-blue colour denotes countries with observer-status.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro at the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Baku on 25 October 2019

1st summit, Belgrade

16th summit of the NAM, Tehran

Josip Broz Tito

President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the second president of Egypt.

Picture of Kenneth Kaunda on an election poster in readiness for the elections on January 21st, 1964

Photograph of first executive president of Sri Lanka,Junius Richard Jayawardana (1906-1996)

Fidel Castro Ruz

Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, Former President of India

Kwame Nkrumah during a state visit to the United States

Nkrumah (first in right, back row) at the 1960 Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference

Arrival of the president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and president of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, to the Non-Aligned Movement conference, Belgrade, 1961.

Official Portrait of President Sukarno.

Sukarno and Nixon in 1956.

Sukarno and Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba, 1960

Houari Boumédiène

Sukarno with John F. Kennedy in 1961.

1955

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.[2][5]

The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War, as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world during the Cold War, whereby two major powers formed blocs and embarked on a policy to pull the rest of the world into their orbits. One of these was the pro-Soviet socialist bloc whose best known alliance was the Warsaw Pact, and the other the pro-American capitalist group of countries, many of which belonged to NATO. In 1961, drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference of 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, through an initiative of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesian President Sukarno.[6][7][8]

This led to the first Conference of Heads of State or Governments of Non-Aligned Countries.[9] The term non-aligned movement first appears in the fifth conference in 1976, where participating countries are denoted as "members of the movement". The purpose of the organization was summarized by Fidel Castro in his Havana Declaration of 1979 as to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."[10][11]

The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' members and contain 55% of the world population. Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World, although the Non-Aligned Movement also has a number of developed nations.[12]

The Non-Aligned Movement gained the most traction in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the international policy of non-alignment achieved major successes in decolonization, disarmament, opposition to racism and opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and persisted throughout the entire Cold War, despite several conflicts between members, and despite some members developing closer ties with either the Soviet Union, China, or the United States.[12] In the years since the Cold War's end in 1992, the movement has focused on developing multilateral ties and connections as well as unity among the developing nations of the world, especially those within the Global South.[12]

1955

The first large-scale Asian–African

or Afro–Asian Conference (Indonesian: Konferensi Asia–Afrika)—also known as the Bandung Conference—was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place on 18–24 April 1955 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.[1] The twenty-nine countries that participated represented a total population of 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world's population.[2] The conference was organized by Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Pakistan and was coordinated by Ruslan Abdulgani, secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

The conference's stated aims were to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by any nation. The conference was an important step towards the eventual creation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) yet the two initiatives ran in parallel during the 1960s, even coming in confrontation with one another prior to the 2nd Cairo NAM Conference in 1964.[3]

In 2005, on the 50th anniversary of the original conference, leaders from Asian and African countries met in Jakarta and Bandung to launch the New Asian–African Strategic Partnership (NAASP). They pledged to promote political, economic, and cultural cooperation between the two continents.

Plenary session during the Bandung Conference

Merdeka Building, the main venue in 1955

Delegations held a Plenary Meeting of the Economic Section during the Bandung Conference, April 1955.…

The 29 countries attending the Asia-Africa Conference.

1955

The Baikonur Cosmodrome

(Kazakh: Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, romanized: Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, [bɑjxɔˈnər ɣɑˈrəʃ ɑjlɑˈɣə]; Russian: Космодром Байконур, romanized: Kosmodrom Baykonur, [kɐsməˈdrom bɐjkəˈnʊr]) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to Russia. The Cosmodrome is the world's first spaceport for orbital and human launches and the largest (in area) operational space launch facility.[1] All crewed Russian spaceflights are launched from Baikonur.[2]

The spaceport is in the desert steppe of Baikonur, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of the Aral Sea and north of the river Syr Darya. It is near the Tyuratam railway station and is about 90 metres (300 ft) above sea level. The spaceport is currently leased by the Kazakh Government to the Russian Federation until 2050 and is managed jointly by the Roscosmos and the Russian Aerospace Forces.[citation needed] The shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres (56 mi) east–west by 85 kilometres (53 mi) north–south, with the cosmodrome at the centre.

Baikonur Cosmodrome was established on 2 June 1955 by the former Soviet Ministry of Defence.[3] It was originally built as the base of operations for the Soviet space program. Both Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, and Vostok 1, the first human spaceflight, were launched from Baikonur. The launch pad used for both missions was renamed Gagarin's Start, in honour of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, pilot of Vostok 1 and first human in space.[4] Under the current Russian management, Baikonur remains a busy spaceport, with numerous commercial, military and scientific missions being launched annually.[5][6]

1955

The Vietnam War

(also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 2] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.[17] It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China,[21] and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies.[68][69] The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war.[70] It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975.

After the French military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, and the U.S. assumed financial and military support for the South Vietnamese state.[71][A 9] The Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare with U.S. and South Vietnamese forces (ARVN). North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC.[72]: 16 By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south.[72]: 16 U.S. involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964.[73][41]: 131

Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to increase U.S. military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000.[73] U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. The U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam,[41]: 371–374 [74] and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive; though it was a military defeat for them, it became a political victory, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade.[41]: 481 By the end of the year, the VC held little territory and were sidelined by the PAVN.[75] In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Operations crossed national borders, and the U.S. bombed North Vietnamese supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. The 1970 deposing of the Cambodian monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country (at the request of the Khmer Rouge), and then a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating the Cambodian Civil War. After the election of Richard Nixon in 1969, a policy of "Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while U.S. forces withdrew in the face of increasing domestic opposition. U.S. ground forces had largely withdrawn by early 1972, and their operations were limited to air support, artillery support, advisors, and materiel shipments. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 saw all U.S. forces withdrawn;[76]: 457 accords were broken almost immediately, and fighting continued for two more years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war; North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.

The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000[34] to 3 million.[64] Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians,[65][66][67] 20,000–62,000 Laotians,[64] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.[A 8] The end of the Vietnam War would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions of refugees leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 of whom perished at sea. Once in power, the Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam would eventually escalate into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, which toppled the Khmer Rouge government in 1979. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with subsequent border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the United States, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements,[77] which, together with the Watergate scandal contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.[78]

1960

The Congo Crisis

(French: Crise congolaise) was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo).[c] The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.

A nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo demanded the end of colonial rule: this led to the country's independence on 30 June 1960. Minimal preparations had been made and many issues, such as federalism, tribalism, and ethnic nationalism, remained unresolved. In the first week of July, a mutiny broke out in the army and violence erupted between black and white civilians. Belgium sent troops to protect fleeing white citizens. Katanga and South Kasai seceded with Belgian support. Amid continuing unrest and violence, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers, but UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to use these troops to help the central government in Léopoldville fight the secessionists. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the largest nationalist faction, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union, which promptly sent military advisers and other support.

The involvement of the Soviets split the Congolese government and led to an impasse between Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu, in command of the army, broke this deadlock with a coup d'état, expelled the Soviet advisors and established a new government effectively under his own control. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. A rival government of the "Free Republic of the Congo" was founded in the eastern city of Stanleyville by Lumumba supporters led by Antoine Gizenga. It gained Soviet support but was crushed in early 1962. Meanwhile, the UN took a more aggressive stance towards the secessionists after Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in late 1961. Supported by UN troops, Léopoldville defeated secessionist movements in Katanga and South Kasai by the start of 1963.

With Katanga and South Kasai back under the government's control, a reconciliatory compromise constitution was adopted and the exiled Katangese leader, Moïse Tshombe, was recalled to head an interim administration while fresh elections were organised. Before these could be held, however, Maoist-inspired militants calling themselves the "Simbas" rose up in the east of the country. The Simbas took control of a significant amount of territory and proclaimed a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. Government forces gradually retook territory and, in November 1964, Belgium and the United States intervened militarily in Stanleyville to recover hostages from Simba captivity. The Simbas were defeated and collapsed soon after. Following the elections in March 1965, a new political stalemate developed between Tshombe and Kasa-Vubu, forcing the government into near-paralysis. Mobutu mounted a second coup d'état in November 1965, taking personal control of the country. Under Mobutu's rule, the Congo (renamed Zaire in 1971) was transformed into a dictatorship which would endure until his deposition in 1997.

1961

The Vostok programme

(Russian: Восток, IPA: [vɐˈstok], Orient or East) was a Soviet human spaceflight project to put the first Soviet citizens into low Earth orbit and return them safely. Competing with the United States Project Mercury, it succeeded in placing the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, in a single orbit in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. The Vostok capsule was developed from the Zenit spy satellite project, and its launch vehicle was adapted from the existing R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design. The name "Vostok" was treated as classified information until Gagarin's flight was first publicly disclosed to the world press.

The programme carried out six crewed spaceflights between 1961 and 1963. The longest flight lasted nearly five days, and the last four were launched in pairs, one day apart. This exceeded Project Mercury's demonstrated capabilities of a longest flight of just over 34 hours, and of single missions.

Vostok was succeeded by two Voskhod programme flights in 1964 and 1965, which used three- and two-man modifications of the Vostok capsule and a larger launch rocket.

1961

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin

[a] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling in the Vostok 1 capsule, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. By achieving this major milestone in the Space Race he became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

Gagarin was born in the Russian village of Klushino, and in his youth was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy. He later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base, near the Norwegian border, before his selection for the Soviet space programme with five other cosmonauts. Following his spaceflight, Gagarin became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was later named after him. He was also elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearful that a national hero might be killed, Soviet officials banned Gagarin from further spaceflights. After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he was again allowed to fly regular aircraft. Gagarin died five weeks later when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

1962

Algeria

,[b] officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa, being more than 200 times as large as the smallest country in the continent, The Gambia.[10] With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.

Algeria produced and is linked to many civilizations, empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Rustamids, Idrisids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and the French colonial empire, with the latter expanded into its present-boundaries. After 132 years of being part of France, tensions between France and the local Algerian populace led to the start of the Algerian War which concluded with Algeria obtaining its independence on 5 July 1962 with the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic on 20 September of that year.

The official languages of Algeria are Arabic and Berber. The majority of Algeria's population is Arab, practicing Islam.[3] The native Algerian Arabic is the main spoken language. French also serves as an administrative and educational language in some contexts, but it has no official status.

Algeria is a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies consisting of 58 provinces and 1,541 communes. Algeria is a regional power in North Africa, and a middle power in global affairs. It has the highest Human Development Index of all non-island African countries and one of the largest economies on the continent, based largely on energy exports. Algeria has the world's sixteenth-largest oil reserves and the ninth-largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria's military is one of the largest in Africa, and has the largest defence budget on the continent. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, the OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.