Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference, 1945.
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The Cold War spanned the four decades immediately following World War II, and is called such because of the extremely high political tensions between the two global superpowers, the U.S. and Soviet Union. Not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 did the Cold War come to an end, allowing the U.S. unprecedented political, economic, militaristic and cultural domination over the world. So what happened during this time period that essentially determined global relations in the second half of the 20th century? Interestingly, there was never an ‘all out war’ between the two. Yet, there is hardly a country of the planet that wasn’t in some way affected by the dynamics of the cold war. Some experience conflict first hand through full-scale war or revolution; others political assassination, or poverty due to economic blockades. The period was rife with human rights abuses on both sides of the fight.