| Glossary Term | Definition |
| The Cold War | Tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies from the mid 1940s until the early 1990s.There never was a direct military engagement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. |
| Buffer Zone | Made up of the countries that are between the Soviet Union and Western Europe that were under Soviet control. If there was an western invasion then the fighting would take place there.(Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania) |
| Bipolar World | After World War II the world is "divided" into two camps: The USA and USSR.(communism vs. capitalism) |
| Spheres of Influence | The areas close/beside a super power. They are influenced to follow policies because of where they are located. Sometimes considered a superpower's "backyard".
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| Truman Doctrine | A U.S. foreign policy announced by President Harry S. Truman in March 1947 that the U.S. government would support any country in the world with military and economic aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet orbit. |
| “iron curtain” | A Western term made famous by Winston Churchill referring to the boundary that symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1990. |
| Marshall Plan | Known officially following its enactment as the European Recovery Program, was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after World War II.(the economic part of the Truman Doctrine) |
| Berlin Blockade | One of the first major crisises of the Cold War, occurred from June 24, 1948 to May 11, 1949 when the Soviet Union blocked railroad and street access to West Berlin. |
| Berlin Airlift | The Soviet Union blocked railroad and street access to West Berlin. American, British and French airlifts of food and other provisions to the Western-held sectors of Berlin. 462 days that flew supplies into the Western-held sectors of Berlin. |
| NATO | A military alliance created in 1949. Western countries agreed to support each other in case of Soviet aggression. |
| Warsaw Pact | An organization of Central and Eastern European Communist states. It was established in 1955 to counter the alleged threat from the NATO alliance. |
| Chinese Revolution, 1949 | Refers to the final stage of the fighting in the Chinese Civil War. Ended with the communist party taking over. |
| McCarthyism | A time of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. Joe McCarty was the main political leader. |
| Korean War | Some consider this Cold War-era conflict to have been a proxy war between the U.S. and its allies and the Communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. It was the first time that UN members sent a combined force a conflict. |
| Nikita Khrushchev | After the death of Stalin, he became the leader of the U.S.S.R. He wasnt the ruthless leader as Stalin was and ruled less intensley. He started de-stalinization and was the founder of the Warsaw Pact. |
| De-Stalinization | A period of relative peaceful co-existance between East and West. It was started by Nikita Khrushchev. after Stalin's death when he denounced some of Stalin's hardline policies. |
| Sino-Soviet Split | A major diplomatic rift between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Caused by de-Stainization, and the Soviets not willing to share the atomic bomb with China. |
| Hungarian Revolution, 1956 | Spontaneous nationwide revolt against the communist government. When the government tried to leave the Warsaw Pact, Soviet tanks were sent in to crush the rebellion. |
| Imre Nagy | A Hungarian politician, appointed Prime Minister of Hungary on two occasions. His non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Uprising of 1956. |
| U-2 | A single-seat, single-engine, high-altitude surveillance aircraft, flown by the United States Air Force. |
| The Berlin Wall | A barrier between West Berlin and East Germany created to stop East Germans exodus from the communist system. Began on August 13, 1961, and it was dismantled in the weeks following November 9, 1989. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | A confrontation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States caused by the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. |
| Fidel Castro | He led the revolution overthrowing Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and shortly after was sworn in as the leader of Cuba. He transformed Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. |
| Bay of Pigs | A 1961 US supported invasion by Cuban exiles intent on overthrowing the communist government of Fidel Castro. Kennedy would not provide air cover and so it was a total failure. |
| Quarantine of Cuba | Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missle Crisis. During the crisis all ships enroute for Cuba were stopped and searched for missles and other weapons. |
| Brinkmanship | The point of war when both sides are head to head and neither side wants to give up. If neither side gives in the repercutions could cause world destrution. Example: Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| J.F.K | 35th and youngest ever president of the U.S.A. Major events included The Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuban Missile Crisis and the starting of the Space Race. Assasinated on Nov. 22, 1963. |
| Sputnik | Worlds first satelite placed into space by Russia in 1957. |
| Space Race | The competition between The U.S.A and the U.S.S.R to be the most technologically space age advanced nation. Russians had the first satelite and person in space. American landed a man on the moon. |
| Yuri Gagarin | A Russian astronaut who was the first person in space on april 12, 1961. Completed one orbit of the earth in 108 minutes. |
| Alan Shepard | First American in space. |
