Throughout the course of the Cold War there were copious events that played a major role in how the war ultimately played out. The Berlin Blockade and the formation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) however, held the greatest influence on the time period they were a part of.
Seeing as the events of the Berlin Blockade were the first major conflict of the war, it seems only fit to categorize such an event as one of the most influential of its time period. Tensions between the two powerhouse nations had already been steadily increasing as a multitude of events played out, so when the Soviet Union blocked off the city of Berlin in an attempt to limit the ability of the United States and make Berlin entirely dependent on the USSR, the tension and unease between the two only increased in nature.
The United states perceived said blockade as a threat to Western European freedom, and since the two million people populating West Berlin heavily depended on the resources supplied by the Western nation, the deprivation of aid from the US would leave them to suffer without food or fuel and ultimately force them to succumb to USSR rule. Worried that surrendering would prove the US to be incapable of defending from Soviet aggression and that sending in armed forces would trigger another world war, president Harry S. Truman ordered the initiation of an airlift that would deliver the resources necessary in order to keep Berlin from collapsing.
The Soviets had been outmaneuvered and on May 12th, 1949 USSR soldiers removed the roadblocks and allowed the US convoys to deliver supplies into Berlin. This event marked a turning point in the war and the world would never be the same. Seeing as Stalin, ruler of the Soviet Union and initiator of the Berlin Blockade, was so willing to starve his civilians in order to get what he wanted, Western Europe became United in an attempt to contain the influence of the Soviets. This led to the formation of NATO and the formal commencement of the Cold War.
Although more specifically to the United States, the formation of NASA was also majorly influential to its time period. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has revolutionized science and become one of the most well-known space organizations to this day. NASA has made huge contributions to the industrialized world such as GPS, remote sensing, the satellite, telecommunications, and most famously, space travel/space access.
Without the formation of NASA the world would be deprived of a multitude of groundbreaking inventions and discoveries that would definitely affect our everyday lives. Around the time that NASA was founded, they were given all non-military control in space which had a major role in the outcome of the Space Race between Americans and the Soviets when they put the first man on the moon in 1969. Based on everything that NASA has created and developed for the growing world and seeing how they have continued to do so for 61 years, innovating and producing massively important projects, it is obvious that this organization’s upcoming has had the biggest influence on not only its time period, but ours as well.
The Berlin Blockade was an event that not only triggered the commencement of the Cold War but also established how it would be fought. NASA innovated and developed things that were seemingly impossible to the people of past times. For both of these reasons it is unequivocally evident that these two events, the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958 and the event of the Berlin Blockade from 1948-1949, had the largest effects on the time period that they were situated in.
