Timelines

For more than a century, countries have wrestled with how to improve international cooperation in the face of major outbreaks of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the world to a near halt in 2020 and killed nearly seven million people, underscored the urgency.

Since India’s independence, ties with the United States have weathered Cold War–era distrust and estrangement over India’s nuclear program. Relations have warmed in recent years and cooperation has strengthened across a range of economic and political areas.

Ukraine has shown resilience and perseverance despite facing multiple challenges—most notably Russian interference—since it achieved independence in 1991. Russia’s threats have culminated in the annexation of Crimea and Europe’s biggest land battle in eighty years.

Over the two centuries since Colombia’s independence, the relationship between Washington and Bogotá has evolved into a close economic and security partnership. But it has at times been strained by U.S. intervention, Cold War geopolitics, and the war on drugs.

Over the course of two hundred years, the United States and Mexico have developed rich diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties but at times clashed over borders, migration, trade, and an escalating drug war.

Since Fidel Castro’s ascent to power in 1959, U.S.-Cuba ties have endured a nuclear crisis, a long U.S. economic embargo, and persistent political hostilities. The diplomatic relationship thawed under President Barack Obama, but many restrictions have since been renewed.

Immigration has been an important element of U.S. economic and cultural vitality since the country’s founding. This interactive timeline outlines the evolution of U.S. immigration policy after World War II.

Since 1992, when the United Nations recognized climate change as a serious issue, negotiations among countries have produced notable accords, such as the Paris Agreement. But leaders have struggled to maintain momentum and failed to slow global temperature rise.

Donald Trump’s first presidential term marked a sharp departure from previous approaches to U.S. leadership in areas such as diplomacy and trade. Here are major foreign policy moments from his four years in office.

The quadrennial U.S. presidential nominating conventions often focus on domestic themes. But they have at times been flavored by global economic concerns and national security threats, offering competing Democratic and Republican visions about the United States’ role in the world. In the 2024 race, Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, and his challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, are projecting starkly different worldviews.

The International Olympic Committee says the games are not meant to be political. But governments and athletes have frequently used the Olympics to make statements through boycotts and protests.

The United States and China have one of the world’s most important and complex bilateral relationships. Since 1949, the countries have experienced periods of both tension and cooperation over issues including trade, climate change, and Taiwan.

Negotiations between the United States and North Korea have proceeded in fits and starts for decades. But they have failed to halt the advance of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Disputes over overlapping exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea have intensified in recent decades, while the territorial row over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea dates back to the nineteenth century.