Cold war

  • A leap into freedom

    Hans Conrad Schumann (March 28, 1942 – June 20, 1998) was an East German soldier who famously defected to West Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall on 15 August 1961. Conrad Schumann was immortalized in this photograph as he leapt across the barricade that would become the Berlin Wall. The photo was called “The Leap into Freedom”. It became an

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  • The Thing-not the movie.

    The Thing, also known as The Great Seal Bug, was a passive covert listening device, developed in the Soviet Union and planted in the study of the US Ambassador in Moscow, hidden inside a wooden carving of the Great Seal of the United States. It is called a passive device as it does not have its own power source.

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  • Laika, the ‘space dog’ was sent into orbit from Russia in 1957. She was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. She was sent on a one-way mission but sadly died less than a week after blast-off. Laika was a stray dog from the streets of Moscow before she was selected to become the

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  • In February 1954, actress Marilyn Monroe traveled to Korea to entertain the American troops. She performed a quickly thrown-together show titled Anything Goes to audiences which totaled over 100,000 troops over 4 days. Then tour was also a chance for the film star to overcome a degree of stage fright. She remarked that the Korea

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  • During the Cold War, Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie was one of the crossing points between West and East Berlin (and West and East Germany). It was operated by members of the U.S. military in the American Sector of the city. Located by the Berlin Wall, which divided the German city during the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie

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  • Ich bin ein Berliner

    The speech is considered one of Kennedy’s best, both a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. Speaking from a platform erected on

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  • Soviet labor camps

    Before the close of World War II, when the Red Army failed to leave Eastern European countries, Stalin’s sphere of influence was expanding. Eventually that group of Soviet-occupied nations became known as the “Warsaw Pact.” At Yalta, Stalin apparently never meant for his troops to leave.  He just forgot to mention it to Churchill and

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  • On this day of his passing it is good to look back at his biggest legacy, although he was not solely responsible for it, he did play a major and decisive part in it. There were two, very moving developments that led to the reunification of Germany: the democratization of the east, especially made possible

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  • Vostok 6

    Vostok 6 (Russian: Восток-6, Orient 6 or East 6) was the first human spaceflight to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space. The spacecraft was launched on June 16, 1963. While Vostok 5 had been delayed by technical problems, Vostok 6’s launch proceeded perfectly with no difficulties at all. Data collected during the mission

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  • Checkpoint Charlie  was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991). East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union’s permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and

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