-
U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The U.S wanted to boycott because they wanted the USSR to withdraw from the Afghanistan War. More than 80 people wouldn't participant and still records were broken. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (“Star Wars”)
Was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. It would use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. -
“Caribbean Basin Initiative”
It was a temporary United States program. It was 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
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. -
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. Also, he had served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Wall collapses
The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
The Soviet Union's first McDonald's fast food restaurant opens in Moscow. The appearance of this notorious symbol of capitalism and the enthusiastic reception it received from the Russian people were signs that times were changing in the Soviet Union. -
Germany is reunified
The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, and its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany as five new Federal States. East and West Berlin were reunited, and joined the Federal Republic as a full-fledged Federal City-State. -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
Fatally stricken by the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe. In the last year the Warsaw Pact had effectively ceased to function as its Eastern European members cut themselves loose from Moscow one by one. -
Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia
Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. -
End of the Soviet Union
The increasing political unrest led the establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 8 of the remaining 9 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.
