The Cold War was a period of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. It was characterized by a struggle for global influence, with both superpowers promoting their ideologies: capitalism in the U.S. and communism in the Soviet Union. This rivalry led to various conflicts, including the Korean War and the Vietnam War, as well as an arms race that included the development of nuclear weapons. Tensions escalated during events like the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the U.S. discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba, bringing the two nations close to nuclear war. The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, symbolized the division between the capitalist West and the communist East. The Cold War ultimately ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, marking a significant shift