50 Chilling Facts About the Cold War Era

- Sponsored Links -

26Chef Boyardee

Chef Boyardee

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.


27. 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.


28. 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.


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


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


Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History


31Hitler's prediction

Hitler's prediction

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."


32. 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.


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


34. 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.


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


- Sponsored Links -

36The US used distorted maps

The US used distorted maps

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."


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


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


39. 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.


40. 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.


- Sponsored Links -

41NATO's involvation

NATO's involvation

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


42. 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.


43. 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.


44. 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.


45. The Soviet Union shot down a Korean civilian 747 that unknowingly entered its airspace during the Cold War, killing all 269 passengers. This incident prompted the U.S. to make the GPS technology available for civilian use.


46Project Azorian recovery

Project Azorian
recovery

During the Cold War, the CIA spent $3.8B to construct a ship with a 16,000ft underwater claw arm in order to retrieve a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine.


47. The Soviet Union and the USA made a plan to do a joint manned mission to Mars during the cold war. The Soviets supported it, but the idea was rejected by Reagan.


48. Being a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd World Country Depends on Its Cold War Orientation


49. The illegal landing of a "mentally unstable" 19-year-old amateur pilot in the Red Square inadvertently helped lead to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.


50. The last leader of East Germany is still alive and still, defends his former country despite serving in prison for several years over Cold War crimes

1
2

Sign up to our Newsletter & get

FREE!! 1000 Facts E-BOOK

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

- Sponsored Links -

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here