100 Interesting Facts About the Cold War

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51Operation Chrome Dome

Operation Chrome Dome

In the '60s at the height of the Cold War, the US continuously flew planes carrying nuclear bombs around the world as a precautionary measure in the event of an attack by the USSR. 5 of these planes crashed, and nuclear contamination resulted in at least 2 instances.


52. In 1945 the USSR presented the U.S. Ambassador with a carved replica of the U.S. Seal. It hung in his office for 7 years before it was discovered to have a small listening device embedded. It was one of the first "bugs" of the Cold War.


53. During the Cold War the Soviet Union had many "closed cities" restricted for foreigners and tightly controlled for citizens and that even today Russia still keeps a great number of its closed cities in the former Soviet republics.


54. NATO was never involved in any conflict until the Cold War was over. Now it's already conflict #6


55. During the Cold War, students at Stuyvesant High School built a particle accelerator in their school's basement. However, when they powered it on, it "tanked the electrical system for the building and surrounding area." greater than $10,000 were spent on the machine, but no one knows what happened to it.


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56Spy satellites reveals 10,000 ancient cities

Spy satellites reveals 10,000  ancient cities

Cold War spy satellites from the 1960s took pictures of 10,000 ancient cities and ruins in the Middle East which nobody knew existed until they were re-examined in 2014. The images were made before modern cities overran many archaeological sites.


57. During the height of the Cold War, the "missile gap" was highly exaggerated; the Soviets may have only had 4 ICBM's


58. George Orwell coined the term "cold war" to describe the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.


59. During the Cold War maps distributed in the US utilized distorted map projections to make the USSR and Vietnam seem larger, closer and more "menacing."


60. Nehru rejected permanent membership for India on the UN Security Council to keep India out of Cold War politics


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61Tamam Shud Case

Tamam Shud Case

An unidentified man was found on a beach in South Australia 69 years ago. He has never been identified, in his pocket was the words "Tamam Shud" torn from a book meaning "finished" or "ended". There are theories he was a Cold War spy due to the circumstances of his death.


62. The Russian "Dead Hand" fail-deadly nuclear retaliatory system developed during the cold war is suspected to still be operational.


63. During the Cold War, the RCMP developed and used a "fruit machine" which measured pupil dilation in relation to pictures of men and women to determine whether someone was gay.


64. Hitler predicted the Cold War. "there will remain in the world only two Great Powers capable of confronting each other the United States and Soviet Russia."


65. The US government had a plan to nuke the moon during the Cold War to intimidate the Soviets


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66Spy shoelaces

Spy shoelaces

During the Cold War, CIA agents used a method of communication-based on how their shoelaces were tied.


67. During the Cold War, a Czechoslovakian pilot hijacked his own plane, claimed asylum in West Germany, and ended up a commercial pilot for Continental Airlines.


68. During the Cold War, a Soviet Navy officer named Vasili Arkhipov prevented Nuclear War by being the only one of three officers aboard the nuclear-armed B-59 to deny the launch of nuclear torpedos, as a unanimous decision of all three officers was needed to launch.


69. Chef Boyardee was awarded the Order of Lenin by the USSR for supplying rations to the Red Army. However, he was unable to accept the award, due to the impending Cold War.


70. The closest the world came to full-scale nuclear war was not during Cuban Missile Crisis or even the during Cold War, but instead, it was when a scientific rocket was mistaken as an American ICBM in 1995.


71Launch code for US nukes

Launch code for US nukes

During the height of the Cold War, the combination authorizing nuclear missile launch was "00000000."


72. In 1959 as the Cold War was underway, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was denied entry into Disneyland on a trip to the US, having to settle for SeaWorld


73. In order to prove the effectiveness of the A10 Warthog to the Air Force, the designers acquired over 300 Russian tanks from all over the world to create a mock Cold War battle scenario in the Nevada desert.


74. During the Cold War, Ted Turner made a videotape to be played on CNN in the event of the end of the world.


75. Cold War defense computers had ashtrays

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12 COMMENTS

  1. some body once told me the world was going to role me i ant the sharpest tool in the shed she was loking kindof dume with her finger and her thum in a shape of an L on her forhead so hay now IM AN ALL STAR GET YOUR GAME ON GET LAID ALL THAT GLITTER AND GOLD.

    858

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