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U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympics were set to happen in Moscow, Russia. Though the attack in December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan had us thinking otherwise. 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. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (“Star Wars”)
Strategic Defense Initiative was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The purposein the creation 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
The trade programs commonly known as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) remain vital elements in U.S. economic relations with our neighbors in Central America and in the Caribbean. The CBI is intended to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist
Mikhail 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. -
Iran-Contra Affair
During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.The scandal began as an operation to free the seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by a group with Iranian ties. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
This treaty had made the Soviet destroy all of the Parties' ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, their launchers and associated support structures and support equipment within three years after the Treaty came into effect. -
Berlin Wall collapses
The Berlin Wall was both the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to 1989 and the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War. Eventually the wall "collapsed", but was mostly taken down by the people of Germany. -
1st McDonalds Opens in Moscow
The arrival of McDonald's in Moscow was a small but certain sign that change was on the horizon. The prices of the McDonalds was the equivalent of several days' wages in Moscow, which several were glad to pay. The appearance of this notorious symbol of capitalism and the enthusiastic reception it received from the Russian people were signs that times were changing in the Soviet Union. -
Germany is Reunified
A strong drive for reunification developed in East and West Germany in 1990. Germany in July had economically reunioned with the West , and on Oct. 3, 1990, political reunification took place under what had been the West German constitution. -
Warsaw Pact is Dissolved
The Warsaw Pact had been founded in May 1955. It had established a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. Though t crumbled for the following reasons. One it had served as a prop for the unpopular Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Two, non-Communists came to power and overruled the pact. -
End of the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. It had fallen due to the increasing political unrest which was led by the establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
