Tip of the Week -- Social Studies

Today, we're combining the social studies tip with an event that happened on this day in history.

On September 15, 1959, Nikita Khrushchev became the first Soviet head-of-state to visit the United States. Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1954. Stalin was a dictator who ruled the Soviet Union and controlled the Eastern Bloc countries from 1922 until his death.

After WWII, the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in the Cold War, which didn't officially end until 1991. During this time, the Soviets and the Americans were both superpowers with nuclear weapons. They realized that each had the power to destroy the other, so rather than engage in a direct war, they engaged in proxy wars. The wars in Korea and Vietnam are examples of proxy wars. The larger, more powerful countries used the smaller countries as substitutes so that they didn't have to fight each other directly.

During the Cold War, especially in the 1950s, tensions ran high. Americans built bomb shelters in their back yards, and school children had air raid drills, in anticipation of nuclear war.

Americans were surprised when Nikita Khrushchev visited America. They weren't sure what to expect. But Khushchev wanted to soften the tensions caused by the Cold War. He wanted more friendly relations. By visiting us, he took the first step in ending the Cold War.

The Cold War did not officially end, however, until 1991, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was in office.