Cold War

The Cold War was a period from the end of WW2 in 1945 and up to the end of Soviet power in the east around 1990.  It was a time when at any moment a spark could ignite a nuclear war, as it nearly did in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Tensions were high, and the forces of NATO and the USSR stared each other down across the Berlin Wall.

 

The figures shown in this section are mostly British and will range from 1945 up to the end of the 1990.