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General Secretary
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union. -
The fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall had begun with the building of the Wall in 1961. However it took about three decades until the Wall was torn down. -
The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott
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. It preceded the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott carried out by the Soviet Union and other Communist-friendly countries. -
Caribbean Basin Initiative
The trade programs known as the Caribbean Basin Initiative 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. -
The Iran–Contra affair
The Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo -
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is a 1987 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, it was ratified by the United States Senate on May 27, 1988 and came into force on June 1 of that year. The treaty is formally titled The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Interme. -
The Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. They focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. -
The German reunification
The German reunification joined the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany, and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. -
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 Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact today signed its own obituary with an agreement to dissolve the 36-year-old military alliance by March 31.The future of the treaty's political spokesmen for the new democracies in Eastern Europe today made clear that it is a matter of time and formalities before all traces of the old Soviet-dominated alliance disappear. -
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. -
USSR Disolusion
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. On December 26, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was finalized by declaration no.
