1941: Following a Ministry of Home Security circular on the carrying of gas masks, a Mrs Mellows organised four lectures aimed principally at housewives of active servicemen, on how to handle a gas situation. The second talk was held on this day. Each lecture covered: latest information about gas attacks; first aid for gas casualties; how to protect yourself and dealing with incendiary bombs and fires. All lectures were very well attended. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
The Cold War began after the Second World War, though it had its roots in earlier tensions and was an important political and ideological conflict of the twentieth century. It was a war between two ideas and ways of ruling – communism (the east)) and capitalism (the west) and saw the rise of two superpowers on the world stage: the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR). It was mostly waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts. The term ‘Cold War’ 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 monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.”
Even in times of heightened tension neither superpower was willing to risk nuclear war by engaging in direct warfare, instead both east and west worked to extend or halt communism by engaging in conflicts in other countries, sometimes the USA, Britain, France and USSR would engage directly by putting troops on the ground at other times they would offer economic aid or military materials to support the struggles. Examples of these proxy wars are:
Another battle of the Cold War was the Space Race, in which the two superpowers worked to outdo each other in this new arena. The Soviets won the race to space by launching a man-made structure, Sputnik 1, into space in October 1957. Worried by this President Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to work on space exploration. This worked, for the USA ultimately won the Space Race with the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon on 20 July 1969.
The Cold War itself finally ended when, in the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev began to reform the Soviet political system and did not oppose the rise to power of democratic governments in Soviet bloc countries. In late 1991 the Soviet Union fell and the Cold War was over.
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With the end of World War II in 1945, Germany was split by the triumphant allies into four “allied occupation zones”: the eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, while the western part went to the United States, Great Britain and France. Berlin, Germany’s capital city, though located within the Soviet zone was similarly partitioned with the Soviets taking the eastern half and the other Allies the western. The existence of capitalist West Berlin within communist East Germany was a great annoyance to the Soviets and in 1948 they blockaded West Berlin in an attempt to starve the allies out, however this failed because the allies supplied the city by air, this was known as the ‘Berlin Airlift’ and lasted until the Soviets called off the blockade in 1948.
Tensions flared again in 1958 over the huge flow of refugees from east to west, many of them young skilled workers and on the 13th of August 1961, after the defection of nearly 33 000 people in August alone, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin, closing the border, which became the Berlin Wall. Initially it was only possible to cross the border at three checkpoints, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. As people from the east were not allowed to move west many tried inventive ways of getting over, under or around the wall. From 1961 to 1989 more than 5,000 succeeded, however at least 171 people were killed in the attempt.
The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when, as the Cold War began to thaw, the head of the East German Communist Party announced citizens could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself.
As the Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol of the Cold War its fall truly heralded the war's end. The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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