The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
The Suez Crisis was an invasion of Egypt and the Gaza Strip in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain control of the Suez Canal for the Western powers and to remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company, which administered the canal. Israel's primary objective was to re-open the blocked Straits of Tiran. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.
Brinkmanship or brinksmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions rather than risk engaging in a conflict that would no longer be beneficial to either side. That might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers, by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy, terrorism, and high-stakes litigation.
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. The single-seat aircraft, flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk, after being hit by an S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile. Powers parachuted to the ground safely and was captured.
The Cold War (1953–1962) discusses the period within the Cold War from the end of the Korean War in 1953 to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Following the death of Joseph Stalin earlier in 1953, new leaders attempted to "de-Stalinize" the Soviet Union causing unrest in the Eastern Bloc and members of the Warsaw Pact. In spite of this there was a calming of international tensions, the evidence of which can be seen in the signing of the Austrian State Treaty reuniting Austria, and the Geneva Accords ending fighting in Indochina. However, this period of good happenings was only partial with an expensive arms race continuing during the period and a less alarming, but very expensive space race occurring between the two superpowers as well. The addition of African countries to the stage of cold war, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo joining the Soviets, caused even more unrest in the West.
The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was a brief armed conflict between the Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Nationalist Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The conflict focused on several groups of islands in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the ROC but were located only a few miles from mainland China.
The Rapacki Plan was a proposal presented in a speech by Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki to the United Nations General Assembly on 2 October 1957 as a limited plan for nuclear disarmament and demilitarization in Central Europe by establishing a nuclear-free zone. The plan declared that the People's Republic of Poland would not station or produce any nuclear armaments within their territory, if the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic agreed to do the same. Czechoslovakia would later include itself in support of the nuclear-free zone. The plan followed attempts by both Western Powers and the Soviet Union to de-escalate Cold War tensions and push for greater disarmament during the mid 1950s.
The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed many issues in the relationship between their countries.
Austria was occupied by the Allies and proclaimed independence from Nazi Germany on 27 April 1945, as a result of the Vienna offensive and ended with the Austrian State Treaty on 27 July 1955.
Canada–Soviet Union relations were the bilateral relations between Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held on November 19 and 20, 1985, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race.
The Syrian Crisis of 1957 was a period of severe diplomatic confrontations during the Cold War that involved Syria and the Soviet Union on one hand, and the United States and its allies, including Turkey and the Baghdad Pact, on the other.
The following lists events that happened during 1959 in Germany.
The term Big Four Conference may refer to one of several conferences between heads of state or foreign ministers of the victorious nations after World War I (1914–18) or during and after World War II (1939–45).
The Helsinki Summit was a private, bilateral meeting between American President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that took place in Helsinki, Finland on September 9, 1990. Due to the vested interests of both the Soviet Union and the United States in the Gulf Crisis' resolution, August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the primary topic of discussion for the leaders during the Helsinki Summit. The concerted efforts at easing American-Soviet tensions in the aftermath of the Cold War was another prominent topic, among other notable current events. At the summit's conclusion, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev produced a document of joint statements that illuminated the areas in which the leaders had committed to aligning their foreign policy goals. The summit was followed by a press conference wherein members of the media questioned Presidents Bush and Gorbachev about the content of their meeting and the justifications for their joint statements.
The United States foreign policy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961, focused on the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its satellites. The United States built up a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems to deter military threats and save money while cutting back on expensive Army combat units. A major uprising broke out in Hungary in 1956; the Eisenhower administration did not become directly involved, but condemned the military invasion by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower sought to reach a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, but following the 1960 U-2 incident the Kremlin canceled a scheduled summit in Paris.
The Washington Summit of 1973 was a Cold War-era meeting between United States president Richard Nixon, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin that took place June 18–25. The Cold War superpowers met at the White House to discuss issues regarding oceanography, transportation, agricultural research, cultural exchange, and most significantly, nuclear disarmament. The Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War was signed during the summit. The summit has been called a high-water mark in détente between the USSR and the US. The summit was originally intended to run until June 26, but ended a day early.
The Berlin Crisis of 1958–1959 was a crisis over the status of West Berlin during the Cold War. It resulted from efforts by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to react strongly against American nuclear warheads located in West Germany, and build up the prestige of the Soviet satellite state of East Germany. American President Dwight D. Eisenhower mobilized NATO opposition. He was strongly supported by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, but Great Britain went along reluctantly. There was never any military action. The result was a continuation of the status quo in Berlin, and a move by Eisenhower and Khrushchev toward détente. The Berlin problem had not disappeared, and escalated into a major conflict over building the Berlin Wall in 1961. See Berlin Crisis of 1961.
The 2021 Russia–United States summit was a summit meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16 June 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Washington Summit of 1990, also known as the "Two Plus Four" talks, was an international summit in the history of the Cold War in which the United States and Germany gained the Soviet Union's support for the reunification of Germany by agreeing that NATO needed to be reformed. As part of this effort, US President George H.W. Bush called for a NATO summit to reform the organization and demonstrate NATO's willingness to present a different approach to the Soviet Union. As part of his efforts to improve relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, Bush proposed a bilateral summit in Washington to Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, in addition to the NATO summit. Gorbachev agreed to the proposal, which resulted in the Washington Summit of 1990.
Switzerland 
Premier Nikolai Bulganin 
President Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Prime Minister Edgar Faure 
Prime Minister Anthony Eden 