The Arms and Space Race - What was really going on during the Cold War

When on the 6th day of August 1945 the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, some 66,000 people died almost instantly after the explosion and the subsequent firestorm. The power of nuclear weapons was instantly apparent and it would bring about an entirely new era in worldwide arms. It brought around a bitter Cold War of words and competition that would last some 45 years between the two former wartime allies: the …

…e USA over the USSR who were bankrupted. A new world order emerged in the post war period with the differing national foreign policies contributing to international tensions and rivalry. Those International tensions escalated into conflicts which demonstrated to the core the rivalry of the then two superpowers: The United States and The USSR. The Arms Race and Space Race was the chance for each country to prove what each believed to be their superiority.