Try our third KS3 History quiz on the Cold War. The two superpowers of the Cold War, the USA and USSR, both liked to demonstrate their power. They became involved in several 'races'. In the arms race, they developed ever more powerful nuclear weapons, including the H-bomb (hydrogen bomb). This was far more destructive than the first nuclear bombs. In the space race, the two powers fought to be the first to put a satellite into orbit, then a person and finally to land people on the Moon.
During the Cold War, and thanks to the arms race, there was always the threat of a nuclear war. There were several major incidents like the Suez Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Any one of these could easily have led to nuclear bombs being dropped and ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles) being launched. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy set up a direct telephone line between the US and Soviet governments for better and faster communications to take place.
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You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - The Cold War
Small sections can still be seen in the city
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The USSR backed North Korea - the UN backed South Korea
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Technically, the war has not yet ended. The Armistice (ceasefire) was signed in July 1953 and a final peaceful solution has yet to be found
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They threatened most US cities with the missiles
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Kennedy was assassinated in 1963
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It was set up in 1963 to try to avoid war
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To stop it breaking away from communism
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Much of the trouble was in the capital, Prague
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Vietnamese rebels wanted to unite the whole country under communism
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Even though the USA lost the war and Vietnam became a communist country, the worry that many more countries would become communist did not happen
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