© Getty Images

End of the Second World War -

The Cold War began as the Second World War ended. With Europe in rubble, the United States and the Soviet Union were effectively the two nations left standing, and each had their own conflicting ideas of how to restore international order.

© Getty Images 

George Orwell coined the term "cold war" -

English journalist and novelist George Orwell is credited with coining the term "cold war." The author of 'Animal Farm' (1945) and 'Nineteen-Eighty-Four' (1949) made the reference in his essay 'You and the Atom Bomb,' published by the Tribune on October 19, 1945.

© Getty Images 

Igor Gouzenko (1919–1982) -

Soviet cypher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected to Canada in 1945 and promptly revealed Stalin's attempts to steal nuclear secrets as well as the technique for planting sleeper agents. He often appeared in public with a sheet over his head to protect his identity, and was dubbed by the press as the "masked man."

© Getty Images 

The "Iron Curtain" -

British statesman Winston Churchill was the first person to use the term "iron curtain" during a speech in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946 (pictured). He remarked that an iron curtain had fallen across Europe, referring to new, Cold War boundaries.

© Getty Images 

Berlin Blockade -

The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major crises of the Cold War. From June 1948 to May 1949, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. In response, the Berlin Airlift was organized—history's largest air supply campaign. Over the course of the airlift, 2.34 million tons of food, coal, fuel, and other vital supplies were delivered to Berlin's 2.2 million inhabitants. More than 277,000 flights involving 300 aircraft took part in the operation.

© Getty Images 

NATO is created -

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed on April 4, 1949 in Washington, D.C. It was created as a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after the Second World War.

© Getty Images 

Pledge of the Allegiance -

In 1954, Congress officially added the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of the Allegiance to symbolize resistance to atheistic communism promoted by the Soviet Union and other Marxist-Leninist countries.

© Shutterstock 

NATO and the Warsaw Pact -

In 1955, Germany was formally admitted to NATO, which led to the formation of the rival Warsaw Pact.

© Getty Images 

Project A119 -

In the late 1950s, Washington set in place a secret operation to examine the feasibility of detonating a nuclear device on the surface of the Moon, ostensibly to demonstrate America's superior weapons capability. The bizarre study was codenamed Project A119.

© Getty Images 

Operation Chrome Dome -

Operation Chrome Dome was a US Air Force Cold War-era mission from 1960 to 1968 that required a B-52 strategic bomber armed with thermonuclear weapons to remain on continuous airborne alert. The aircraft was refueled in the air (pictured).

© Getty Images 

Third World status -

The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. These nations were seen as potential allies by both the United States and Europe (First World nations) and the Soviet Union and its allies (Second World countries).

© Getty Images 

Bay of Pigs fiasco -

The Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 failed spectacularly when American bombers were unable to support Cuban exiles in their attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. US bombers had earlier targeted Cuban airfields but were unsuccessful in destroying Castro's air capability, essential if an amphibious attack was to succeed. The invasion was a fiasco and led to major shifts in international relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and was a major cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Pictured are Castro's soldiers at Playa de Giron in Cuba, after thwarting the ill-fated attack.

© Getty Images 

Tsar Bomba -

The Cold War era witnessed the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested—the Tsar Bomba. Developed by the Soviet Union, it was detonated on October 30, 1961 over the the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago, releasing the equivalent of over 50 megatons of TNT, which was more than all the explosives used during the Second World War combined.

© Getty Images 

Chrysler air raid siren -

American automobile manufacturer Chrysler was tasked with building air raid sirens to alert citizens of an impending Soviet nuclear attack. They were powered by huge V8 engines and featured six horns that could be heard up to 40 km (25 mi) away.

© Getty Images 

Cuban Missile Crisis -

The closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It came about after American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba. Fortunately, confrontation between the two superpowers was averted, but President Kennedy had drafted a public address outlining a worst case scenario that would have informed the American public that he had "reluctantly ordered the armed forces to attack and destroy the nuclear buildup in Cuba."

© Getty Images 

The man who saved the world -

A little-known Soviet Navy officer named Vasili Arkhipov (1926–1998) is credited with preventing a nuclear strike (and, potentially, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he refused an order to authorize the use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy. Arkhipov was second-in-command of the submarine B-59 (pictured) and his authority was required in order to confirm the captain's order. Decades later, Arkhipov is still regarded as the man who "saved the world." Image: U.S. Navy photographer

© Public Domain 

Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963) -

A former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, returning to the United States in June 1962, at the height of the Cold War. Identified as the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Oswald was presumed a communist sympathizer. But documents released in 2017 suggest that Soviet authorities reacted with genuine surprise to the Kennedy killing and that they considered his murder might be part of a larger right-wing coup to take over the US government.

© Getty Images 

Target: Castro -

All sorts of daft schemes were devised by the CIA to do away with Fidel Castro. In fact, the Cuban leader survived no fewer than 634 attempts on his life. Some of the more comical plots included spiking his cigars with poison, planting explosive seashells in the area where he went swimming, and even enlisting Mafia mobsters to carry out a hit.

© Getty Images 

Quintessential symbol of the Cold War -

The Berlin Wall, the guarded concrete barricade that physically divided the city from 1961 to 1989, also served as an ideological barrier.

© Getty Images 

Mapping the Canadian Arctic -

During the Cold War, Canada maintained its claim to the Northwest Passage and North Pole. It felt Arctic sovereignty was being undermined by the Soviet Union's issuing of maps showing Canada's portion of the Arctic Circle. However, these maps were so detailed that seagoing vessels still use them today, preferring them over current Canadian maps.

© Getty Images 

Hotdogs at the Pentagon -

After examining satellite reconnaissance images of the Pentagon, Soviet intelligence officers believed the structure in the center of the building was a secret bunker entrance. In fact, it was a hotdog stand.

© Getty Images 

Fake Soviet passport -

Sharp-eyed USSR counter intelligence officials could always spot a fake Soviet passport because the metal staples wouldn't rust. Their real passports were made using inferior quality metals that corroded very quickly.

© Getty Images 

Size matters -

Always looking at new ways to distract the enemy, US operatives at one point considered dropping enormous condoms on the USSR that were labeled "medium." The apparent intention was to demoralize the Soviets against anatomically superior American forces.

© Shutterstock 

The Cambridge Five -

The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. It remained active into the 1950s, when suspicion fell on its members: Donald McClean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby (pictured), Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross.

© Getty Images 

Anthony Blunt (1907–1983) -

After being offered immunity from prosecution in 1964, Anthony Blunt confessed to being a Soviet spy. This revelation was a closely guarded secret for years, during which time Blunt became Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. He was unmasked in 1979, but was never prosecuted. He is pictured with the British monarch in the 1950s.

© Getty Images 

Spy gadgets -

Early spy gadgets issued to agents on both sides included the Minox spy camera, pictured here against a box of matches for scale. A more ingenious—and eye-watering—device was the so-called "rectal escape kit." A spy would hide the escape kit in his or her rectum, just in case they were captured and imprisoned.

© Getty Images 

Low-tech spying techniques -

The CIA developed a complex code involving different ways for their operatives and informants to send silent messages based on how their shoes were tied. Similarly, agents also sent messages via the ribbons used to tie up parcels and packages.

© Getty Images 

Acoustic Kitty -

Secret projects developed by the CIA during the Cold War ranged from the sinister to the truly comical. Launched in the 1960s, Operation Acoustic Kitty saw cats fitted with listening devices implanted in their ears in order to "spy" on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies.

© Getty Images 

Cold War-era US Presidents -

Nine American presidents were in office during the Cold War era: Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Pictured together are Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy.

© Getty Images 

Korean War -

The Korean War (1950–53) can be described as a proxy war between  the United States and the Soviet Union clashing over communism and democracy. It was fought between North Korea, aided by China, and South Korea, supported by the United Nations with the US as principal participant.

© Getty Images

Vietnam War -

The Vietnam War (1954–75) was a long, costly, and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. It was the deadliest proxy war of the Cold War era, and claimed the lives of over 3.5 million people.

© Getty Images 

DARPANET -

During the 1960s, the United States government sponsored research undertaken by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to develop a way to rapidly share information between military computers. The Americans eventually created a network of communication they called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), which ultimately led to the development of the internet. Pictured is a rough diagram from 1969 indicating how the network could function.

© Getty Images 

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 -

In an incident that provoked global condemnation, a Korean Air Lines flight from New York to Seoul was shot down in 1983 by interceptor aircraft for violating Soviet airspace after the passenger plane veered off course. This prompted the United States to allow worldwide access to its Global Positioning System, or GPS. The Korean jet's flight recorders were secretly recovered by the Russians, but it was only in 1992 that the "black boxes" were handed back to Korean officials. President Boris Yeltsin is pictured handing the devices to Korean President Roh Tae-Woo.

© Getty Images 

Closed cities -

Numerous closed cities existed in the Soviet Union from the late 1940s until its dissolution in 1991. These were entire settlements where citizens were restricted from leaving, and visitors closely monitored. Closed cities in Russia still exist today, one of which is Seversk (pictured), in Siberia.

© Shutterstock 

Stanislav Petrov (1939–2017) -

Stanislav Petrov was in charge of Soviet nuclear early warning systems on the night of September 26, 1983, when a false "missile attack" signal appeared to show a US nuclear launch. He decided not to retaliate. Petrov is feted by nuclear activists as another Russian official who "saved the world," this time by determining that the Soviet system had been spoofed by a reflection off the earth.

© Getty Images 

Flight of fancy -

On May 28, 1987, 19-year-old German amateur aviator Mathias Rust managed to land his Cessna plane right in the heart of Moscow, an incredible feat as he flew through sophisticated Soviet air defense systems and fooled military as well as civil air traffic controllers into the bargain.

© Getty Images 

A bridge to the East -

The teenager was swiftly arrested by Soviet security services and appeared in court. During his trial, he declared that we wanted to create an "imaginary bridge" to the East, and that his flight was intended to reduce tension and suspicion between the two Cold War sides. He served 14 months in prison, though the Soviet Union was embarrassed for far longer.

© Getty Images 

Cautionary tale -

After the electrified border fence separating the Soviet Union from the rest of Europe was dismantled in 1991, deer in the Czech Republic refused to cross the imaginary line along which the barricade once stood. Even today, these animals remain cautious of the frontier.

Sources: (History) (Live Science) (Autoweek) (The Boston Globe) (NPR) (NBC News) (Department of Defense) 

See also: Cold War lifeline: how the Berlin airlift kept a city from starving

© Getty Images