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Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union
This title was given to the leader of the communist party of the Soviet Union. It had 4 branches off of it including the Technical Secretary, Chairman of the Secretariat, Responsible Secretary, and the First Secretary. -
U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
This was one part of a number of actions intitated by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union and other countries would later support the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
This was also know as Star Wars, this program was first iniatied by President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
“Caribbean Basin Initiative”
This was aimed to provide several tariffs and benefits to many Central American and Carbbean countires. Provisions in the CBERA prevented the United States from extending preferences to CBI countries that it judged to be under the influence of Communists or that had expropriated American property. -
Iran-Contra Affair
This was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration.They hoped that the arms sale would secure the release of several US hostages. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
This was an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was singed On December 8, 1987. It was ratified a year later on May 27,1988. -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
Having been exiled to a relatively obscure position in the construction bureaucracy, Yeltsin began his political comeback in 1989 by winning election to a newly formed Soviet parliament with nearly 90 percent of the vote. The following year he won a similar landslide victory in a race for Russia’s parliament, became its chair and then renounced his membership in the Communist Party. -
Berlin Wall collapses
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations 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.The arrival of McDonald’s in Moscow was a small but certain sign that change was on the horizon. In fact, less than two years later, the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a nation, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of the country, and various Soviet republics proclaimed their independence. -
Germany is reunified
The German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany. The united Germany is considered to be the enlarged continuation of the Federal Republic and not a successor state. -
end of the Soviet Union
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.
