The United States strove to contain Soviet power by establishing 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO linked the United States, Denmark, Portugal, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Britain, France, and the Benelux countries. West Germany included in 1956, and Spain in 1982. In response to NATO, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact, consisting of the armed forces of the Soviet Union and its European satellites.
On March 3, 1820, Congress approved the Missouri compromise, a law that maintained a balance in the Senate between free and slave states. The pact only lasted 34 years, and its elimination was one of the contributing factors that led to the Civil War.
