Super Power Relations and the Cold War Timeline

The Cold War forms a key part of both AQA and Edexcel GCSE History courses. It is a fascinating part of history, full of intrigue, espionage and the looming nuclear armageddon. What’s not to love? Despite this, it certainly is a large topic, and requires students to be familiar with a great deal of terminology, names, political systems, dates and numbers. Often, one of the trickiest things is to keep up with who is leading the USA and USSR – and importantly, during which event. With this in mind, I have created a “skeleton” timeline below, listing some of the key events of the Cold War for both the Edexcel and AQA GCSE specifications.

Use this as a basis to start your own revision, but think about the overall “narrative” (i.e. hotting up, crises, detente and collapse), as well as which events you would add in. Consider other important developments such as the arms race, space race, eastern European satellite states moving away, or proxy wars such as the Korean conflict.

If you are unsure of what content is required for your exam board, make sure to read the specification first. AQA can be found here. Edexcel can be found here. For bonus points, Seneca Learning is a fantastic, free website (with exam board specific modules across many topics) – test your knowledge in context here! Good luck, and happy cold-warring.

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USA Presidents	USSR Leaders	Key Events
Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1933-1945	Joseph Stalin: 1924-1953	Tehran (Nov 1943), Yalta (Feb 1945) and Potsdam Conferences (July 1945)
Harry S. Truman: 1945-1953		August 1945 – Hiroshima Bombing   February 1946 – Long Telegram September 1946 – Novikov Telegram March 1947 – Truman Doctrine   June 1948 – Berlin Blockade
	Gregory Malenkov: 1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1953-1961	Nikita Khrushchev: 1953-1964	1955 – Vietnam War begins 1956 – Hungarian Uprising
John F. Kennedy: 1961-1963		April 1961 – Bay of Pigs Invasion August 1961 – Berlin Wall Constructed October 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis
Lyndon B. Johnson: 1963-1969	Leonid Brezhnev: 1964-1982	1968 – Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Richard Nixon: 1969-1974
Gerald Ford: 1974-1977		April 1975 – Vietnam War Ends August 1975 – Helsinki Agreements
Jimmy Carter: 1977-1981		Dec 1979 – USSR invades Afghanistan
Ronald Reagan: 1981-1989	Yuri Andropov: 1982-1984	March 1983 – Strategic Defence Initiative (Reagan’s “Star Wars”)
	Konstantin Chernenko: 1984-1985
George H. W. Bush: 1989-1993	Mikhail Gorbachev: 1985-1991	1987 – Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” (Perestroika and Glasnost) August 1991 – Moscow Military Coup November 1991 – Fall of the Berlin Wall