86 Important Cold War Facts For The History Enthusiasts

During the Cold War, MI5 planned to use gerbils at airports to help detect terrorists, secret agents, and subversives.

77. During the height of the cold war, the US launched a hydrogen bomb into space resulting in the "greatest man-made light show.."

78. During the Cold War, most records were banned in the Soviet Union. This spawned an era of bootlegging in which the music was recorded onto x-rays films and smuggled in.

79. 750,000 bunkers were built in Albania during the Cold War one for every four inhabitants. They were a drain on the economy and almost never used.

80. Project Pluto was a cold war era program to develop a nuclear-powered ramjet cruise missile which would have an unlimited range. One of its drawbacks was that it would spew fission material as exhaust.

During the cold war, America sent Romania 20,000 Bibles, which the Romanians subsequently turned into toilet paper because they had a shortage.

82. During the cold war, the Soviets would feed their soldiers an explosive feedstock as a dietary supplement to keep them warm.

83. During the Cold War, West Berlin was isolated from the European power grid; several small coal power plants had to supply the Western sector

84. Two families escaped East Germany during the height of the Cold War by designing and building a hot air balloon under the noses of the German Stasi secret police and flying it more than 20 miles across the border in the middle of the night.

85. Towards the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had an over-the-horizon radar system that was so powerful, it interfered with the world's electronics, and some people believed it to be a Soviet mind control experiment.

Turkey participated in the Korean war, despite not having any political conflicts during the cold war. Nevertheless; they sent soldiers to help the U.S. because they desperately wanted to be a member of the NATO and their previous membership requests were denied.