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Period: to
Cold War
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U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott of the Moscow Olympics was one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (“Star Wars”)
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) of President Ronald Reagan. “Star Wars” involves the development by the United States of a defense in outer space against intercontinental ballistic missiles. -
“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 -
Iran-Contra Affair
A scandal in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, which came to light when it was revealed that in the mid-1980s the United States secretly arranged arms sales to Iran in return for promises of Iranian assistance in securing the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev instituted cultural reform allowing greater freedom of expression, known in Russian as ‘Glasnost.’ He also instituted economic reform to kick-start the economy, also known as ‘Perestroika.’ -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
This treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges,defined as between 500-5,500 km. Was the first Nuclear Weapons agreement requiring the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics toreduce, rather than merely limit, their arsenals of nuclear weapons -
Berlin Wall collapses
Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
This was the Soviet’s McDonalds. Throngs of people line up to pay the equivalent of several days’ wages for Big Macs, shakes, and french fries. -
Germany is reunified
A unification treaty was ratified by the Bundestag and the People's Chamber. The Berlin Wall was in effect breached in the summer of 1989 when a reformist Hungarian government began allowing East Germans to escape to the West through Hungary’s newly opened border with Austria. -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
march 31 1991
It was dissolved because the Soviet’s were losing their allies. anti-Soviet and anti-communist movements throughout Eastern Europe began to crack the Warsaw Pact. -
Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia
He was a 60-year old alcoholic. Recognizing that the Communist leadership had little regard for him Yeltsin bolted from the party. -
end of the Soviet Union
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian Flag.
