The Cold War: What Happened Doc

The Cold War, the War between two of the most powerful countries in the world, yet they did not physically battle one another. These two countries: the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR). This "war" lasted from 1947-1991. Following the close of World War II, the two countries had ever-increasing tension between one another, despite the fact that they were allies in World War II. This tension was because of the disagreement of several political views between the two countries. The Soviets had Communist views on politics, were reflected in the laws in which they enforced upon their citizens. Communism is basically a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party (dictionary.com). In a Communist country, the citizens share an equal amount of pay and property, which is owned entirely by the state. The USA's political views were completely opposite to those of the Soviets. The US's political views are that of a democracy which all people have a say in their country's decision making, and vote for representatives to make those decisions go through. Although the USA and USSR didn't actually battle, they sided with countries that had similar political views as theirs, and those countries would battle one another.

The quarreling between the USA and the Soviets not only existed on earth, but also in space! The 1950s was a time of great tension between both countries. This tension included the concern the use of nuclear weapons to be used by each country against one other. On October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched the satellite in which they called "Sputnik". This gave the Soviets an advantage in the space game and brought fear of nuclear war from space upon the USA. With that being said, the US got to work. Their goal became to gain an advantage against Russia through a program known as "The Space Race". The US set up a space...