The Warsaw Pact is signed

The Cold War pressured many countries into forming alliances with other countries that had similar ideologies. After WWII ended, the Americans became instantly fearful of the Soviet Union. America was the global hub for capitalism in the nuclear age (Post WWII), and the USSR was the centre point for communism. Because communist ideology stated that all of capitalism had to be destroyed, the Americans disliked the Soviets very much. Once the war had ended, the Soviets conquered every square inch of land they could, and over night, millions of people fell under communist rule. The USSR conquered much of Eastern Europe and subjected the peoples to their horrible rule. The continent of Europe had suddenly become divided in two, with the western half democratic, and the eastern half communist. The line that cut the continent in two was dubbed the "iron curtain", for not many were lucky in crossing into the free west. The Americans became fearful of these series of events, and created NATO with Western Europe in 1949, with the threat of Soviet annexation in mind. These democratic states were in a military alliance that assured protection for each member state from communism, and guaranteed that any threat to a member would be met with force from all other members. In essence, the pact was a way to build a bloc of friendly states to counter the size of the USSR. The USSR saw this as a threat and created its own "NATO". Known as the "Warsaw Pact", this treaty was forced onto the conquered nations, an was a mirror of NATO. It assured any of the states that western aggression would be met with Soviet Aid, and that all member states (membership was forced onto Communist Bloc states) would be safe from any US actions. The signing of the Pact allowed the USSR to expand its military into its satellite states and expanded the flow of weapons through these countries, meaning missiles and heavier arms became greater in number along the iron curtain.

The signing of the Warsaw Pact, on this day in 1955, was an important event because it was a counterweight to NATO. It meant that both sides in the Cold War had agreements to defend allies from military provocation. The Warsaw Pact did not last, as it collapsed in July of 1991 (all of the members withdrew and then left the USSR). The Warsaw Pact heightened cold war tensions, and created a bloc to counter NATO states.