-
Berlin Wall collapses
Berlin Wall definition. Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West. -
U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
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. -
iran-contra affair
A scandal in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, which came to light when it was revealed that in the mid-1980s the United States secretly arranged arms sales to Iran in return for promises of Iranian assistance in securing the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. -
Caribbean Basin Initiative
The Caribbean Basin Initiative was a unilateral and temporary United States program initiated by the 1983 "Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act". The CBI came into effect on January 1, 1984 and aimed to provide several tariff and trade benefits to many Central American and Caribbean countries. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
He was the seventh and last undisputed leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the country's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991 -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, commonly referred to as the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty, requires destruction of the Parties' ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, their launchers and associated support structures and support equipment within three years after the Treaty enters into force -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
It took McDonald's 14 years of intense negotiations to convince the Communist leaders of the Soviet Union to allow the chain to set up their first restaurant. Yet almost as soon as the Iron Curtain began to fall, the first McDonald's opened in Moscow's busy Pushkin Square -- on January 31, 1990. -
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, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
a military treaty and association of E European countries, formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania: East Germany left in 1990; the remaining members dissolved the Pact in 1991 -
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 -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
He was a Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union.
