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Warsaw Pact is dissolved
The events in Hungary produced ideological fractures within the Communist parties of the world, particularly in Western Europe, with great decline in membership as many in both western and communist countries felt disillusioned by the brutal Soviet response -
Berlin Wall collapses
Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U.S. in per capita production within twenty years. Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party. He was promoted to Head of the Department of Party Organs in the Stavropol Agricultural Kraikom in 1963. -
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
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 (CBI) 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. -
Iran-Contra Affair
The scandal began as an operation to free the seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by a group with Iranian ties connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The longer range, greater accuracy, mobility and striking power of the new Soviet SS-20 missile was perceived to alter the security of Western Europe. After discussions, NATO agreed to a two part strategy—firstly to pursue arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union to reduce their and the American INF arsenals; secondly to deploy in Europe from 1983 up to 464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM) and 108 Pershing II ballistic missiles. -
Germany is reunified
The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. It caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
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end of the Soviet Union
While doubts remained over the authority of the leaders of three of the 12 remaining republics (the three Baltic republics had seceded in August) to dissolve the Union, according to Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Soviet republics had the right to secede freely from the Union. -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
The 1997 agreement was preceded by the Khasavyurt Accord signed by Maskhadov, then the chief of staff of Chechen separatist forces, and the Russian general Alexander Lebed on August 30, 1996, which had formally ended the war in Chechnya with the withdrawal of all federal forces and administration, and thus the return to uneasy status quo of 1991-1994