1945-1989: the Cold War

Within two years of the end of World War two, the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union was shattered and for the next 40 years global affairs were dominated by the battle for ideological and material supremacy between the two superpowers: a battle fought through espionage and propaganda. The Cold War resulted in the nuclear arms race, “the space race”, as well as entrenching either Soviet or US domination throughout the developing world. The video explores the Cold War from the beginning of President Truman’s policy of “containment” in Greece; to the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact; through the Korean, Vietnam and Afghanistan wars; the revolts against Soviet domination in Hungary and Czechoslovakia; the Cuban Missile Crisis; to the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which symbolised the end of the Cold war and totalitarian communism.