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1975:
1979: Soviets invade Afghanistan;
1980: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev begins program of glastnost, or openness that allowed people to speak freely resulting in Soviet system beginning to unravel.
1981: attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II fails;
1982: Monaco's Princess Grace dies in car accident; Spain joins NATO;
1983: after 19mths, martial law is lifted in Poland;
1986: Chernobyl nuclear reactor partial meltdown in Ukraine;
1989:
demonstrators in E.Germany, Bulgaria & Czechoslovakia bring down their communist governments leading to the Berlin Wall being dismantled after 28yrs and end of Communism in 1990-1 in these regions.
Yugoslavia state starts to disintegrate.
Gorbachev decides to withdraw Soviet troops from fruitless campaign in Afghanistan
1990: Lech Walesa elected president of Poland; 35,000 killed in Iranian earthquake;
1991:
after failed coup attempt by hard-line communists, Gorbachev resigns & soon Pres. Boris Yeltsin temporarily bans the Communist Party, ending the Bolshevik Revolution as constituent states begin to declare their independence resulting in the USSR falling into disarray and easing of East-West tensions.
Bosnian war commences:
after break up of Federal Republic, fighting breaks out in Yugoslavia between Serbs, Croats & Muslims when Serb leader Milosovic conjures fear in minority Serb groups in Croatian dominated areas and with the rise of nationalism, commences fire on Croat towns and then starts the massacres of minorities, yet another genocide. The Serbs were reminded of persecution by muslims 600yrs previously and the Serbian genocide by Hitler in WWII, the propaganda engendered hatred and ensured the war would be one of the most bloody in the century & allowed ethnic cleansing to be attempted once again, this time, against the muslims in particular. UN tried to create safe areas and economic sanctions to no avail, and in 1995, under military pressure the UN soldiers left a town to the mercy of Serbs who killed 8,000 men in the town and dumped them in mass graves. Serbs expelled all muslims & Croats from serb-held regions.
1994: Russian troops invade Republic of Chechnya in unsuccessful attempt to oppose its independence movement
1995: Chechen fighters seize hospital in Russia, more than 100 hostages killed in botched rescue. Russians forced to let hostage takers go.
1996: Chechen commandos seize hundreds of hostages in village in neighbouring Dagestan, before escaping Russian seige.
1997: Pres. Yeltsin signs formal peace treaty, leaving unresolved question of independence. Chechnya sinks into anarchy & under influence of militant Arab Wahhabi fighters.
1999: Chechen fighters stage incursion into Dagestan, residential blocks blown up in Moscow & Volgadonsk killing 300. Chechen insurgents blamed. War breaks out again.