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Warsaw Pact is dissolved
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War.The Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954 but was primarily motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe which in turn to maintain peace in Europe. -
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. It preceded the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott carried out by the Soviet Union and other Communist-friendly countries. -
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. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the the SDI. -
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. It arose in the context of a U.S. desire to respond with aid and trade to leftist movements that were active in some countries of the region. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. 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. He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October Revolution. -
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. 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
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 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 US Senate on May 27, 1988 and came into force on June 1 of that year. The treaty is formally titled The Treaty Between the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. -
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. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
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. That day Moscow McDonald's set a world record: it served more than 30 thousand visitors. People stood in line for over 6 hours, willing to get a taste of this unusual food. At that time it was the first fast food place in the whole country. -
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. The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. 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. -
End of the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 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 On December 26, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was finalized by declaration no. 142-H of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
