The Marshall Plan was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent.
Soviets placed a blockade on the allied sector of Berlin to starve the population into Soviet alliance. The blockade was a soviet attempt to starve out the allies in Berlin in order to gain supremacy. the blockade was a high point in the cold war, and it led to the Berlin airlift. The allied response was a unbelievably massive air supply- flying night and day to feed the city.
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).