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Gorbachev introduces glasnost
The term “Glasnost” means “openness” and was the name for the social and political reforms to bestow more rights and freedoms upon the Soviet people. Its goals were to include more people in the political process through freedom of expression. -
Gorbachev introduces perestroika
From modest beginnings at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986, perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev's program of economic, political, and social restructuring, became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three-quarters of a century to erect. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed
The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification. -
Berlin Wall Falls
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. -
Jozsef Antall elected prime minister of Hungary
Jozsef Antall, the Hungarian Prime Minister, died today in Budapest. He was the longest-ruling leader of post-Communist Eastern Europe and probably the most conservative. Mr. Antall, 61, was hospitalized in Budapest last month with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer of the lymph glands. He had been receiving chemotherapy and had also had been treated in Germany in October. -
Vaclav Havel elected president of Czechoslovakia
Václav Havel was a prominent participant in the liberal reforms of 1968, and, after the Soviet clampdown on Czechoslovakia, his plays, which explore the self-delusions and moral compromises that characterize life under a totalitarian system, were banned. Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia in July 1990, becoming the country's first non communist leader since 1948. -
Lech Walesa elected president of Poland
Lech Walesa, well-known Polish labor leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is sworn in as the first noncommunist president of Poland since the end of World War II. His victory was another sign of the Soviet Union’s lessening power and communism’s waning influence in Eastern Europe. -
Germany reunification takes place
Less than one year after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany come together on what is known as “Unity Day.” Since 1945, when Soviet forces occupied eastern Germany, and the United States and other Allied forces occupied the western half of the nation at the close of World War II, divided Germany had come to serve as one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War. -
1st general elections in Romania
A presidential election took place in Romania in 2014, and was held in two rounds, on November 2 and 16. In the first round, out of fourteen runners the top two candidates qualified in a run-off. Victor Ponta, current Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party won around 40% of the vote, and Klaus Iohannis, mayor of Sibiu and leader of Christian Liberal Alliance, won around 30%.
