The Cold War, though not a real war, is a huge part of World and American history, not only because of the 40 or sop years it lasted, but because of the entire event. During the Cold War the US and the Soviet Union had started a nuclear arms race. The both of them were spending billions trying to stock up on nuclear weapons! Close to the end of the Cold War the Soviet Union was spending nearly 27% of its entire gross on the militia. This, of course, crippled their economy and brought an end to the not really a war.
But, anyway, going back a little, it was actually the US who had built the first nuclear weapons through the “Manhattan Project” (which was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during WWII.) This ended the war with Japan because we dropped a bunch of nuclear bombs on them (Yeah, people, we did stuff back too, since some people don’t seem to realize this, but I’m sure you all do.) Nuclear bombs are so powerful just once could destroy a very large, centralized(or even uncentralized but the centralized ones tend to be bigger, of course.) city, and they’ve only been used once, which was during WWII. The Cold War was based on the fact that neither side wanted to engage in a nuclear war that could destroy much of the civilized world, which is a good thing because the world would probably end up like how you see it in zombie-based movies(you know the ones, barely any living people, desolated lands, no resources, except it’d be worse…)
So, a little bit later, in 1949, the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb. This shocked…well, the entire world, as assumptions had been that the Soviet Union was still a long ways away from this point in nuclear development. This had begun the arms race.
And now, again, a few years later in 1952, the US detonated their first Hydrogen bomb, an even more powerful version of the nuclear bomb. So, the SU followed up a year later with their Hydrogen bomb, those copycats. So, they...