The Cold War ended with Joseph Stalin's death.

False. Stalin died in 1953, but the Cold War lasted for nearly four more decades. While his death ushered in a brief “thaw” under Nikita Khrushchev, the U.S.–Soviet rivalry continued through major flashpoints like the Berlin crises, the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Vietnam War, and a sustained nuclear arms race. The Cold War effectively ended only in 1989–1991 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern European revolutions, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Think timeline: Cold War ≈ 1947–1991. Stalin’s death marks a transition, not a terminus. Remember it this way: “Stalin’s death sparked a thaw, not a stop.” Later détente in the 1970s and Gorbachev’s reforms (glasnost and perestroika) in the 1980s set the stage for the peaceful end of the conflict.