After WWII, Nazi territories were split between Western and Soviet territories. The US looked for ways to prevent Communism from spreading into its territories and installed the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover. The Soviet Union then prevented ground access to Berlin causing the US and Britain to drop supplies via airplane. At this point, Western Europe and the US signed the North Atlantic Treaty which agreed that if one country, that was part of the treaty, was attacked, it would be considered an attack on all. Six years later, the Warsaw Pact was created by Communist powers which had the similar idea of NATO in which if one country was attacked, it’d be viewed as an attack on all within the treaty. This allowed for the Soviet Union to control its Communist territories more …show more content…
The countries at this point were facing a rivalry for the competition to reach space. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, an artificial satellite, successfully into space and orbit around the Earth. In response to this, the US launched Explorer I the following year and President Eisenhower signed off on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. President Eisenhower also formed the CIA and US Air Force as national security and to obtain information on the Soviet Union. By 1959 launched Luna 2, space probe, and in 1961, Vostok 1, with Yuri Gargin, was launched and carried the first man to orbit the Earth. In the same year, the US also sent its first man, Alan Shepard, in orbit around the Earth. The Space Race came to an end towards the late 60s when the US successfully launched and landed Apollo 11 on the Moon allowing Neil Armstrong to be the first man to walk on the