The Soviet Union ends state of war with Germany.

Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

The USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.

Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR, is discovered.

In his speech ''On the Personality Cult and its Consequences'' Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union denounces the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin.

Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation. (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4).

Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.

Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches ''Sputnik 2.'' On board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika.

The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan in Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed.

The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon.

Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.

Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union thus ending a Big Four summit in Paris.

Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the United States and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute.

Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disrupts a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts.

Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe

Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash

Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.

In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.

Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S ''Finnclipper'' in the Danish straits.

The so-called "red telephone" is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.

The Hotline between the leaders of the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union goes into operation.

The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits

Cold War: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appeals to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.

Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.

The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.

The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast are established.