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Cold War
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Berlin blockade and airlift Secretary of State Dean Acheson, seated at a table holding a gavel, calls a NATO meeting to order, with T.A. Charlton on his left and Paul Van Zeeland in the foreground. Cuban missile crisis
Explore technological innovations of the Cold War
How the Cold War contributed to antibiotic resistance
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Soviet invasion of Prague
What if the Cold War turned hot?
Large crowd celebrates on and around the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev
At a Glance
Wreckage of the U-2 spy plane shot down inside the Soviet Union in 1960. U-2 spy plane incident, U-2 affair, Cold War.
Comprehension Quiz: Cold War
Secretary of State Dean Acheson, seated at a table holding a gavel, calls a NATO meeting to order, with T.A. Charlton on his left and Paul Van Zeeland in the foreground.
Cold War summary
Quizzes
Thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, code-named MIKE, detonated in the Marshall Islands in the fall of 1952. Photo taken at a height of 12,000 feet, 50 miles from the detonation site. (Photo 3 of a series of 8) Atomic bomb explosion nuclear energy hydrogen energy
Facts You Should Know: The Cold War Quiz
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Berlin blockade and airlift
Berlin blockade and airlift Children watching a U.S. cargo plane landing at Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin, 1948.

Cold War

international politics
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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•History

Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three...

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