The Cold War was between the two great powers but its influence spanned the globe.
After World War II, the world was left with the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the two most powerful countries, yet their idealogical pursuits were in deep conflict with one another.
As a result, the world experienced four decades of tension, proxy wars, and crises that narrowly avoided total destruction.
Here are photos chronicling the war in Vietnam and Korea, spying and scandal, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a lot more.
1
The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union
1968
2
American tanks face an East German water cannon at Checkpoint Charlie
1961
3
Soviet and American tanks face each other at Checkpoint Charlie during the Berlin Crisis
1961
4
US Marines engaged in street fighting during the liberation of Seoul
September 1950
5
Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin in Moscow
December 1949
6
"Tear down this wall!" speech: Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate
June 1987
7
Soviet paratroopers aboard a BMD-1 in Kabul during the Soviet-Afghan War
Afghanistan, 1986
8
Soviet soldiers stand by armored vehicles.
Afghanistan, 1986
9
88680/ Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan
1989
10
U.S. forces assault a stronghold in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War
1961
11
Flame thrower being used during Operation New Castle of the Vietnam War
1967
12
Soldiers of the Army of Vietnam, 1st Batallion, 6th Regiment
1970
13
The Thing, which contained a Soviet bugging device that was undiscovered for years
Placed in the U.S. Embassy of Moscow
14
Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with US President Ronald Reagan
1989
15
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria
1961
16
Brigade 2506 landing craft at the Bay of Pigs
April, 1961
17
Counter-attack by Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces supported by T-34 tanks near Playa Giron during the Bay of Pigs invasion
April, 1961
18
Invaders during the Bay of Pigs surrender to Cuban soldiers.
April, 1961
19
Soviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by U.S. Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba
1962
20
Adlai Stevenson II shows aerial photos of Russian missiles in Cuba to the United Nations Security Council in the presence of USSR ambassador Valerian Zorin.
1962
21
Jupiter missiles placed in Turkey began what became the Cuban Missile Crisis
A PGM-19A Jupiter missile on its silo
22
A parade of missiles in Moscow
1964
