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Germany is reunified
the Communist Party in East Germany began to lose its grip on power. Tens of thousands of East Germans began to flee the nation, and by late 1989 the Berlin Wall started to come down. Shortly thereafter, talks between East and West German officials, joined by officials from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the USSR, began to explore the possibility of reunification. -
Berlin Wall collapses
Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East -
1st McDonalds opens in Moscow
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. An American journalist on the scene reported the customers seemed most amazed at the "simple sight of polite shop workers...in this nation of commercial boorishness." A Soviet journalist had a more practical opinion, stating that the restaurant was "the expression of America's rationalism and pragmatism toward food." He -
U.S. boycott of 1980 Summer Olympics
The boycott had been ordered by President Jimmy Carter in response to the recent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the White House knew that a failure to get other nations to similarly boycott could embarrass the U.S. and render its move to sit out the games ineffective. Now the president was in bad need of assistance in selling the plan abroad—and the boxing legend was needed in Africa. Ali, offended by the Russian invasion himself, agreed to lend a hand. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
With the tension of the Cold War looming overhead, the Strategic Defense Initiative was the United States’ response to possible nuclear attacks from afar. Although the program seemed to have no negative consequences, there were concerns brought up about the program “contravening” the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks years before. For this reason, in conjunction with budgetary constraints, the Strategic Defense Initiative was ultimately set aside. -
“Caribbean Basin Initiative”
The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) is the series of trade programs that seek to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies. The Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (“CBERA”) was enacted on August 5, 1983 and authorized the granting of certain U.S. unilateral preferential trade and tax benefits for Caribbean Basin countries and territories. -
Iran-Contra Affair
Battling the Cuban-backed Sandinistas, the Contras were, according to Reagan, "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers." Under the so-called Reagan Doctrine, the CIA trained and assisted this and other anti-Communist insurgencies worldwide. -
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ratified
The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, commonly referred to as the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty, requires destruction 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 enters into force -
Warsaw Pact is dissolved
The future of the treaty's political links will be decided at another meeting in Prague in June, but 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 Yeltsin elected President of Russia
Yeltsin won two presidential elections, the first of which occurred while Russia was still a Soviet republic. But despite successfully ushering in a freer and more open society, his tenure was marred by economic hardship, increased corruption and crime, a violent war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and Russia’s diminished influence on world events. -
end of the Soviet Union
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. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic -
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
He launched his nation on a dramatic new course. His dual program of “perestroika” (“restructuring”) and “glasnost” (“openness”) introduced profound changes in economic practice, internal affairs and international relations.