The Kennan Telegram shaped early US Cold War strategy

The Truman Doctrine marked the start of US containment strategy

Introduced in 1947, the Truman Doctrine pledged US support for nations resisting communism—starting with Greece and Turkey—and launched the containment policy that defined early Cold War strategy.

The Cold War (1947-1991) prompted the birth of NATO and the Soviet Warsaw Pact

The geopolitical rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union was considered “cold" because the two countries never directly engaged in military combat during the time period. This page from the Kennedy Presidential Library outlines the causes and major events of the early Cold War.

Wartime conferences exposed cracks in the US–Soviet alliance

At the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, Allied leaders coordinated WWII strategy—but deep disagreements over postwar Europe foreshadowed the Cold War. The USSR’s push for influence in Eastern Europe clashed with US and British calls for self-determination.

Churchill’s 1946 ‘Iron Curtain’ speech warned of growing Soviet domination

In a 1946 speech, Winston Churchill declared that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe—dividing East from West. The address marked one of the first public acknowledgments of the emerging Cold War and coined the term that would define the conflict.

Propaganda became a key weapon in the US–Soviet Cold War

Both superpowers waged a global battle for hearts and minds through propaganda—using film, radio, art and education to promote their values. The US emphasized freedom and prosperity, while the USSR championed socialism and anti-imperialism.

The Soviet Union had a similar sphere of influence policy during the Cold War—the Brezhnev Doctrine

Articulated in 1968, the Brezhnev Doctrine claimed the Soviet Union's right to intervene militarily in its satellite states to prevent any deviation from communist rule. It was used to justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia that same year and the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

The threat of nuclear annihilation reshaped global diplomacy

The first use of atomic weapons introduced the possibility of a war with no survivors. This article examines how nuclear fear shaped Cold War diplomacy and continues to influence international relations today.

The Marshall Plan aimed to rebuild Europe and limit Soviet influence

Launched in 1948, the Marshall Plan provided over $12B (roughly $150B today) in US aid to help rebuild Western Europe. While framed as economic recovery, it also served as a Cold War tool—tying countries to the US and excluding the Soviet bloc.

An NSA analyst helped avert nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962, NSA cryptographer Juanita Moody headed analysis of U‑2 surveillance data and urgently produced intelligence on Soviet missile deployments in Cuba. Her reports drove high-level US decision-making, and were critical to avoiding nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviet Union explained

From 1922 to 1991, the Soviet Union spanned one-sixth of Earth’s landmass and housed nearly 300 million people. As the most significant test of Marxist governance, it sat at the center of the century’s defining struggle between capitalism and communism.

The term ‘McCarthyism’ was coined by a political cartoonist

In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy infamously proclaimed that he had a list of communist State Department employees. The next month, cartoonist Herbert Block published a cartoon in the Washington Post featuring a reluctant elephant (the mascot of the Republican Party) being pushed to stand on a wobbly tower labeled “McCarthyism.”

Truman's decision to enter the Korean War without congressional authorization marked a major shift in presidential war powers

Rather than seeking a declaration of war, Truman sent troops to Korea under his own authority, citing the UN Charter and his role as commander in chief. The decision set a precedent that subsequent presidents have relied on ever since.

The intellectual architect of the Monroe Doctrine was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, not Monroe

Adams, the main foreign relations authority in the Cabinet, shaped the key parts of the Monroe Doctrine speech. He advocated for a unilateral American declaration to warn European powers, rejecting a potential joint statement with Britain favored by some Cabinet members.

A digital archive of the Korean War

The Korean War largely shaped the evolution of the Cold War in Asia. Explore the Wilson Center’s digital collection of primary sources—including essays, profiles, popular documents, and a timeline—to learn about the Korean War. In 1945, the...

Designs for the Hubble Space Telescope were based on Cold War spy satellites

By incorporating elements of the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellites, NASA could incorporate existing classified manufacturing expertise and infrastructure from the intelligence community to expedite the research project.

The Supreme Court's first major free-speech ruling rested on a legal standard that was later overturned

In Schenck v. United States (1919), the court introduced the "clear and present danger" test—permitting the government to restrict speech that posed an immediate threat to public safety. Although the doctrine was later replaced, the ruling upheld the conviction of a man who had distributed anti-draft pamphlets.

Watch a 1957 news report on the Sputnik launch

This 1957 news report captures the shock and uncertainty that followed the launch of Sputnik, showing how the first artificial satellite immediately altered global politics, military planning, and public perceptions of technological power.

The US embargo on Cuba was designed to cause hardship and eventual regime change

A secret 1960 memo by State Department official Lester Mallory argued that trade restrictions were “the only foreseeable means” to unseat Castro by provoking hunger and desperation. This page compiles declassified US documents detailing that strategy and its aftermath.

Who were the Cambridge Five

Recruited in the 1930s, the Cambridge Five infiltrated British intelligence and leaked secrets to the Soviets for decades, shaping WWII and the Cold War.

John Mearsheimer argued that the liberal international order was bound to fail

University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer argued in his influential essay Bound to Fail that expanding liberal democracy and open markets into other great powers' spheres inevitably leads to conflict, and that the liberal order contains the roots of its own collapse.

'The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost.'

- Diplomat George Shultz (1920–2021)

'Through this unique means, I convey to you and all mankind, America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to men everywhere.'

- President Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) sending a message from space

Read an analysis of Roosevelt’s famous Congressional address by a speech writer

Former White House speechwriter Bob Lehrman breaks down why Roosevelt’s 520-word “Infamy” speech endures—showing how FDR used structure, urgency, radio-era reach and careful omissions to rally the nation and win near-unanimous support for war.

The congressman who spied for Russia

Sam Dickstein remains the only known member to have served in Congress while actively being on the payroll of a foreign adversary. The revelation came in 1999 upon the release of thousands of KGB documents.

250 years of world trade history

Adam Smith’s revolutionary ideas about free trade were often ignored throughout American history to protect domestic industry—until World War II caused a shift in sentiment about global trade.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.