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1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
It happened about 20 years ago. In 1988 McDonalds got a permission from the Communist party to start the business on the territory of the Soviet Union. Two years later the first restaurant opened its doors in Moscow on Pushkinskaya square. At dawn on 31 January 1990 more than 5 thousand people came to be the first at its opening. -
Berlin Wall collapses
The Berlin Wall was erected in the dead of night and for 28 years kept East Germans from fleeing to the West. Its destruction, which was nearly as instantaneous as its creation, was celebrated around the world. -
1980 Summer Olympics boycott
The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott of the Moscow Olympics was a part of a package of actions initiated by the United States to protest against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.[1] It preceded the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott carried out by the Soviet Union and other Communist-friendly countries. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (“Star Wars”)
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983,[1] to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). -
Iran-Contra Affair
Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the product of two separate initiatives during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. -
“Caribbean Basin Initiative”
The trade programs known collectively as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) remain vital elements in U.S. economic relations with our neighbors in Central America and in the Caribbean. The CBI is intended to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is a 1987 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, it was ratified by the United States Senate on May 27, 1988 and came into force on June 1 of that year -
.) Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In its first two incarnations the office performed mostly secretarial work. The post of Responsible Secretary was then established in 1919 to perform administrative work.In 1922 the office of General Secretary followed as a purely administrative and disciplinary position, whose role was to do no more than determine party membership composition. -
Germany is reunified
The German reunification (German: Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) joined the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG/West Germany) to form the reunited nation of Germany, and when Berlin reunited into a single city. -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
The Warsaw Pact (formally, the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, sometimes, informally WarPac, akin in format to NATO) was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
On 13 June 1991, millions of Russians went to the polls for the first time in an open election to choose a president. Emerging as winner was 60-year-old Boris Yeltsin, a maverick with a reputation for alcohol abuse who had for some time advocated political and economic reforms. -
end of the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The increasing political unrest led the establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to attempt a coup d'état to oust Mikhail Gorbachev and re-establish a strong central regime in August 1991.