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East Asia 1940
Japanese Invasion of French Indochina
While Nomonhan and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact seemed to put an end to ideas of Japanese expansion north, the outbreak of ...
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Southern Asia 1941
Japanese Intervention in French Indochina
Germany's defeat of France in 1940 left the French overseas empire vulnerable. Japan, which was already at war with ...
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East Asia 1945
Surrender of Japan's Overseas Forces
At the time of the Japanese surrender, Japan still had some 4 million troops stationed abroad. Over the following months ...
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Southern Asia 1946
Iran Crisis
When World War II ended, the Soviet Union refused to withdraw from Allied-occupied Iran at the same time as Britain ...
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East Asia 1946
Reclaiming China
During the war in China, the Communists had gradually built up power in the rural areas behind Japanese lines. When ...
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Southern Asia 1946
Independence in the Middle East
During World War II, the French had promised Syria and Lebanon independence. After the war, they attempted to revoke these ...
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China 1955
End of Soviet Influence in China
The Korean War was effectively ended with a formal ceasefire in 1953. With the immediate threat from the West over ...
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Sub-Saharan Africa 1956
Independence of Sudan
In 1953 Egyptian revolutionaries deposed the last King of Egypt and the Sudan, signing a treaty with the British the ...
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East Asia 1959
China under Mao
Following the end of the Korean War in 1953 and France's Indochina War in 1954, China began to move ...
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East Asia 1963
Formation of Malaysia
In 1961, Indonesia attacked Dutch New Guinea. The dispute was resolved by the United Nations, which transferred the territory to ...
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North America 1966
Operation Power Pack
Castro's success in Cuba helped inspire further revolts across Latin America. In April 1965, the Dominican Revolutionary Party overthrew ...
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East Asia 1968
Vietnam War
At the end of the First Indochina War, Vietnam had been divided between a Communist North and a pro-Western South ...
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China 1969
Sino-Soviet Border Conflict
In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, a hugely destructive campaign to purge China of anti-Communist thought. By now, Chinese ...
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East Asia 1973
Paris Peace Accords
By the late 1960s, US public opinion had swung strongly against involvement in the Vietnam War, a stance exacerbated when ...
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China 1974
Battle of the Paracel Islands
The 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict encouraged the United States to improve relations with the People's Republic of China, leading to ...
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North America 1974
Counterculture Revolution
Outside the Americas, the US had been fighting communism in Vietnam since the early 1960s. Meanwhile American society was being ...
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East Asia 1975
Communist Victory in Indochina
Only months after the Paris Peace Accords, Nixon became embroiled in the Watergate scandal, which ultimately ended his presidency. With ...
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East Asia 1979
Sino-Vietnamese War
The Khmer Rouge's brutal rule in Cambodia led to millions of deaths, while its growing antagonism with its former ...
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North America 1979
Decolonization in the Caribbean
In the 1960s and '70s, the British withdrew from most of their remaining colonies in the Americas. A brief attempt ...