Contemporary History:

  • The North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) is signed (1949) – Created to form a western military bloc to balance against the Soviet Union, NATO was established with the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. It was preceded by the 1948 Brussels Treaty which had created an alliance between Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The Warsaw Pact was formed by the Soviet Union in response to NATO and consisted of Central and Eastern European Soviet states. NATO continues to address international concerns; since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, it has mainly focused on engaging international terrorism, arms control, and managing nuclear nonproliferation.
  • Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrows King Farouk and ends British occupation (1952) – Gamal Abdel Nasser ended British rule over Egypt and became the first president of the Republic of Egypt. He founded the Free Officers, fought in the Faluja Pocket in the first Arab-Israeli War, and led the coup that overthrew King Farouk. When General Muhammad Naguib formed a new government, Nasser deposed him and took power, socialized Egypt, and was voted president. To fund the Aswan Dam, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and caused the Suez Crisis in 1956. He also established theUnited Arab Republic, which dissolved in 1961, and lost the Six-Day War against Israel in 1967. Nasser died in 1970 and was succeeded by Free Officer Anwar el-Sadat.
  • Nikita Khrushchev assumes control of the Soviet Union (1958) – The premier of the Soviet Union from 1958-1964, Nikita Khrushchev headed policies of de-Stalinization and “peaceful coexistence” with the West. Khrushchev came to power after Stalin’s death in 1953, took on Richard Nixon in the 1959 “kitchen debate”, and embarked on a tour of the United States. During an appearance in the United Nations General Assembly, he famously pounded a desk with a shoe. This “thaw” in the Cold War ended with the Cuban Missile Crisis, when panic ensued after Soviet missile facilities were discovered in Cuba. The crisis was averted and ended in humiliation of the Soviet Union; this, along with the failure of an agriculture policy, led to Khrushchev’s political downfall. He was overthrown and succeeded by his deputy Leonid Brezhnev in 1964, and died in 1971.
  • The Troubles begin in Northern Ireland (1968) – The Troubles was a period of sectarian violence in Ireland between Protestant loyalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, and Roman Catholic nationalists, who desired absorption into the Republic of Ireland. It was fought between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Fein, and the loyalist paramilitary; the British Army and local police acted as peacekeepers. The Troubles began with the Battle of Bogside, featured “peace walls”, and was escalated by Bloody Sunday, a massacre of Catholic demonstrators by the British military. This was followed by the Bloody Friday bombing, the failed Sunningdale Agreement, the killing of Lord Mountbatten, and a hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. Peace talks began with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Downing Street Declaration, and concluded with the Good Friday Agreement in 1999. Though another bombing in Omagh killed 29, both sides began decommissioning in 2005.
  • Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979) – Known as the “Iron Lady”, the radically conservative Margaret Thatcher was the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom, serving from 1979 until 1990. Thatcher, though interested in politics, studied chemistry at Oxford, worked as a research chemist, and then studied and practiced law from 1951 until 1954. She was elected to Parliament in 1959, became secretary of education, and discontinued free milk in schools. After the “winter of discontent”, Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 and implemented conservative domestic policies and monetarist economics. While in office, she won the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982, defeated a coal miners’ strike, and privatized companies including Rolls-Royce. She was succeeded by John Major in 1990.
  • Solidarity forms under Lech Walesa (1980) – Solidarity, an independent trade union, was founded under the Polish communist regime. It had its origins in a 1980 strike at the Lenin Shipyards led by activist and electrician Lech Walesa, and had its roots in 1976’s KOR group. Solidarity was eventually suppressed by the Polish government under Wojciech Jaruzelski in 1981. However, it experienced a revival in 1989 and, led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, formed a coalition with Poland’s new parliamentary government.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union (1985) – The last president and general secretary of Soviet Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev moved the country towards democracy, ended an era of Russian communism, and broke up the Soviet Union. Gorbachev implemented radical democratic reforms while in office, introducing the policies of glasnost and perestroika. He also ended the nuclear arms race with Ronald Reagan’s United States, and withdrew the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Gorbachev resigned in 1991, just before the Soviet Union officially dissolved.
  • Chernobyl disaster happens (1986) – The city of Pripyat, near Chernobyl, Ukraine, was the site of a Soviet nuclear plant and the worst nuclear disaster in history. An explosion and reactor meltdown, the disaster occurred at V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station during an inspection of RBMK reactor Unit 4 due to violated safety protocols. One famous piece of debris from the disaster is known as the “elephant’s foot”. Authorities reported 28 initial deaths and evacuated the town of Pripyat; the Ukrainian government later disclosed that the nuclear fallout was responsible for 125,000 deaths.
  • The Berlin Wall falls (1989) – The Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of the Cold War, separating the democratic west and the communist east, until its demolition in 1989. After the Allied victory in World War II, Berlin was occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and France; the democratic western powers controlled West Berlin, and the Soviet Union set up a socialist state in East Berlin. Tension soon mounted between the blocs; the Soviet supply blockade of West Berlin and the Berlin Airlift of 1948 exemplify this. Discontent within East Germany heightened this political strain, and in 1961, the eastern government began building the Berlin Wall to restrict defections to the west. Checkpoints Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie were the only crossing points of the wall; despite this, over 5,000 East Germans managed to escape illegally past the Death Line. The Berlin Wall was dismantled in 1989 after the replacement of East German leader Erich Honecker by Egon Krenz.
  • Apartheid ends in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela is elected (1994) – Apartheid was the legal segregation of non-whites in South Africa from 1948 until the 1990s, when Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk drafted a new South African constitution. Apartheid and South African social activism were shaped by the 1913 Land Act, the 1960 Sharpesville Massacre, the African National Congress (ANC), the creation of Bantustans. After government violence against student demonstrators at Soweto, Pieter Botha’s administration began receiving international pressure from the United Nations, United Kingdom, and United States; F.W. de Klerk took leadership in 1989 and began the abolition of apartheid alongside Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela spearheaded the South African civil rights movement. He was born into a Thembu tribe in 1918, joined the ANC, and helped draft the Freedom Charter in 1955. By 1960, he had abandoned his nonviolent ideology, trained in guerrilla warfare, and founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). He was arrested and convicted at the Rivonia Trial and sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 1990 by President de Klerk. Mandela later helped South Africa transition away from apartheid and served as President of South Africa, retiring in 1999. He died in 2013.