The Cold War was one of the tensest times in human history. The very existence of human hung in constant balance. Nuclear war was on everyone’s mind and mutual distrust filled the air. Spanning the length of time all the way from the end of World War II to the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War encompassed several smaller “hot” conflicts like the Vietnam War and the Korean War. In some ways, the Cold War was simultaneously one of the most destructive and one of the most constructive periods in human history. It was pressure and competition between the two sides that led to the Space Race and the moon landings. And numerous scientific discoveries were made as a result of the conflict. Of course, as we said before, all the Cold War wasn’t “hot” in the sense that guns were fired, it encompassed numerous smaller conflicts all of which were very “hot” and led to many lives being lost. In this list, however, we are going to focus on the stranger and less well known aspects of the war. This will include blunders, mess ups, and quirky facts. These are the 25 most amusing things that happened during the Cold War.
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The US and the USSR were initially going to go into space together but after President Kennedy was assassinated, the Soviets didn't trust Vice President Johnson
The USSR thought that the building in the center of the Pentagon was a top secret meeting room so they pointed their nukes at it. It was actually a hot dog stand.
During the Cold War, the Soviets could tell if a passport was fake because the staples in real passports would corrode due to the low quality metal
The United States used bears to test the ejector seats of their jets
George Orwell was the first person to use the term "Cold War"
Originally, the term 3rd world country did not mean a poor nation. It simply meant any country not aligned with either the US or the USSR
On that note, countries aligned with the US were considered first world, and countries aligned with the USSR were considered 2nd world
The US had made plans to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon to show off military might. It was never implemented.
Canada forcibly relocated many Inuit into the northern parts of the country in order to affirm its sovereignty in the Arctic
It was the Soviets, however, who had the best cartographers. Their maps of the Arctic were so detailed that they are still in use today
Operation Kitty was a real operation undertaken by the CIA to equip cats with spy equipment. The first mission failed, however, when the cat was run over. Not surprising the $15 million operation was subsequently dropped
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