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Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
When Mikhail S. Gorbachev (1931-) became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, he launched his nation on a dramatic new course. His dual program of “perestroika” (“restructuring”) and “glasnost” (“openness”) introduced profound changes in economic practice, internal affairs and international relations. Within five years, Gorbachev’s revolutionary program swept communist governments throughout Eastern Europe from power and brought an end to the Cold War (1945 -
U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The U.S. decision to boycott the 1980 Olympic games had no impact on Soviet policy in Afghanistan. Russian troops did not withdraw until nearly a decade later, but it did tarnish the prestige of the games in Moscow. It was not the first time that Cold War diplomacy insinuated itself into international sports. -
Caribbean Basin Initiative
It was a unilateral and temporary United States program initiated by the 1983 "Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act" (CBERA). 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. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
U.S. weapons research program begun in 1983 to explore technologies, including ground- and space-based lasers, for destroying attacking missiles and warheads. -
Iran-Contra Affairs
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 ratified
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. Signed by President ronald reagan, of the United States, and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, of the U.S.S.R., on December 8, 1987, the INF Treaty eliminated all land-based nuclear missiles with ranges of between 300 and 3,400 miles. -
Berlin Wall Collapses
The Berlin Wall had a physical division between West Berlin & East Germany, it was a symbolic boundary between democracy and communism during the Cold War. In 1989 the East Berlins party announced the change in his city's relation with the West. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
The Soviet Union's first McDonald's fast food restaurant opens in Moscow. Throngs of people line up to pay the equivalent of several days' wages for Big Macs, shakes, and french fries. -
Germany is reunified
On 3rd October 1990, East and West Germany are reunited, ending 45 years of Cold War division. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Germany was divided between the four major Allied powers; the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France. -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
The Soviet Union - at the time the world's leading communist power and one of two superpowers (the other being the U.S.A.) - was evolving from a communist state to a more "westernized" capitalist economy. Because of the negotiations between Mikhail Gorbachev - the last Soviet leader - and President Ronald Reagan, the president of the U.S.A. in the 80's, the Soviet Union dismembered its communist statehood. The Warsaw Pact, an alliance between Eastern European socialist republics, dissolve -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
President of the Russian republic who criticized the slow pace of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. In 1991, he successfully led the opposition to an attempted coup by communist hard-liners and became the most powerful person in the former Soviet Union. As president, Yeltsin led the Russian republic in its difficult and often chaotic struggle to move away from centralized economic planning, but he was plagued by poor health, conservative opposition, and a lagging economy. -
End of the Soviet Union
As the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II.
