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U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 forced Jimmy Carter to make the decision to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics. The conditions were that the US would participate if their troops were withdrawn. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
The SDI was an idea proprosed and acted upon by President Ronald Reagan. It proposes that we should devise a defense system against nuclear attacks, so we may move away from the fear and need for nuclear missiles. -
Caribbean Basin Initiative
The CBI is intended to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies. It arose in the context of a U.S. desire to respond with aid and trade to leftist movements that were active in some countries of the region. -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
When Mikhail S. Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, helaunched his nation on a dramatic new course. Within five years, Gorbachev’s revolutionary program swept communist governments throughout Eastern Europe from power and brought an end to the Cold War, the largely political and economic rivalry between the Soviets and the United States and their respective allies that emerged following World War II. -
Iran-Contra affair
Secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. In early November 1986, the scandal broke when reports in Lebanese newspapers forced the Reagan administration to disclose the arms deals. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges, defined as between 300-3,400 miles. -
Berlin Wall collapses
In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
At the time it is the largest McDonald's in the world. This shows that capitalism and competition is coming to the USSR. -
German Reunification
Process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany, -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
Beginning at the Cold War's conclusion, in late 1989, popular civil and political public discontent forced the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries from power. The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991. -
Boris Yelstin elected President of Russia
Boris Yeltsin resolved to embark on a program of radical economic reform. Unlike Gorbachev's reforms, which sought to expand democracy in the socialist system, the goal was to completely reinstate capitalism. -
End of the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The dissolution of the state also marked an end to the Cold War.
