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U.S. Boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan spurred Jimmy Carter to issue an ultimatum on January 20, 1980 that the United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics if Soviet troops did not withdraw from Afghanistan within one month. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (“Star Wars”)
Was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. -
“Caribbean Basin Initiative”
Was a unilateral and temporary United States program initiated by the 1983 "Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act". The CBI aimed to provide several tariff and trade benefits to many Central American and Caribbean countries. -
Iran-Contra Affair
During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo. Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of several hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 (INF) was the first Nuclear Weapons agreement requiring the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) to reduce, rather than merely limit, their arsenals of nuclear weapons. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
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. -
Berlin Wall Collapsed
In November 1989, the East German government reopened the border and issued visas to East Berliners. The Berliners celebrated by breaking off pieces of the wall at a mass demonstration, which lasted into the next day. The wall has since been demolished. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War, removed the constitutional role of the Communist Party in governing the state, and inadvertently led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. -
Germany Is Reunified
The German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of 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 -
Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia
Yeltsin vowed to transform Russia's socialist command economy into a free market economy and implemented economic shock therapy, price liberalization and privatization programs. -
End of the Soviet Union
In 1991, when Boris Yeltsin seized the power and the Belavezha Accords were signed, the decision to disband the Soviet Union had been made and supported by the governments of Ukraine and Belarus. On December 12, 1991 Russia’s secession from the Union was sealed, the Belavezha Accords were ratified and the 1922 treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union was denounced.
