January 20, 1989 - George H.W. Bush took the oath of
office as the 41st U.S. president; Dan Quayle becomes 44th vice
president.
February 5, 1989 - Signaling the close of the nearly
decade-long Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, the last
Russian troops withdraw from the capital city of Kabul. Less than
two weeks later, all Soviet troops departed Afghanistan entirely,
ending what many observers referred to as Russia's "Vietnam";
December 1979 - Soviet armed forces entered Afghanistan
to support that nation's pro-Soviet communist government in its
battles with Muslim rebels; February 15, 1989 -
Soviet Union announced that the
last of its troops had left Afghanistan;
over 13,000 Russian soldiers died, over 22,000 wounded.
February 9, 1989 - President Bush submitted a budget
of $1.16 trillion, included an estimated deficit of $91.1 billion;
1988 - Reagan projected that the deficit would climb
to $129.5 billion; 1992 - President submitted final
budget, estimated a deficit of $352 billion.
February 14, 1989 - At a meeting of the presidents
of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador,
the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agrees to free a
number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a
year; in return, Honduras promises to close bases being used by
anti-Sandinista rebels. February 1990 - elections in
Nicaragua resulted in the defeat of the Sandinistas, removing what
officials during the administration of President Ronald Reagan
referred to as a "beachhead of communism" in the Western
Hemisphere.
February 15, 1989 - The Soviet Union announced that
the last of its troops had left Afghanistan after more than nine
years of military intervention.
March 9, 1989 - The Senate rejected President
George H.W. Bush's nomination of John Tower to be defense
secretary on a 53-47 vote.
March 15, 1989 - Department of Veterans Affairs
officially established as a Cabinet position.
March 15, 1989 - General Secretary of the Communist
Party Mikhail Gorbachev calls for an end to the Soviet
agricultural bureaucracy and the introduction of free market
principles. Gorbachev's speech was an indication that his economic
program in the Soviet Union was suffering serious
troubles--problems that eventually led to the collapse of his
government and the Soviet Union in December 1991. Central
Committee issued its approval of the plan the following day.
However, Gorbachev's proposal was too little, too late. The Soviet
economy continued to falter and agricultural production never met
demand.
April 18, 1989 - Thousands of Chinese students
continue to take to the streets in Beijing to protest government
policies and issue a call for greater democracy in the communist
People's Republic of China (PRC). The protests grew until the
Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed them in June during what
came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
April 19, 1989 - A white female jogger in New York's
Central Park was brutally beaten and raped. Five black and
Hispanic teenagers were convicted in the "Central Park Jogger"
case and sent to prison. But the convictions were overturned in
2003 after a serial rapist confessed and DNA evidence tied him to
the crime.
April 21, 1989 - Six days after the death of Hu
Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist
Party, some 100,000 students gather at Beijing's Tiananmen Square
(site of communist leader's Mao Zedong's proclamation of the
People's Republic of China in 1949) to commemorate Hu and voice
their discontent with China's authoritative communist government.
April 22 - an official memorial service for Hu
Yaobang was held in Tiananmen's Great Hall of the People, and
student representatives carried a petition to the steps of the
Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li Peng. The Chinese
government refused such a meeting, leading to a general boycott of
Chinese universities across the country and widespread calls for
democratic reforms. April 27 - Ignoring government
warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration,
students from more than 40 universities began a march to
Tiananmen; May 18, 1989 - A crowd of protesters,
estimated to number more than one million, marches through the
streets of Beijing calling for a more democratic political system.
Just a few weeks later, the Chinese government moved to crush the
protests; May 20 - the government formally declared
martial law in Beijing, and troops and tanks were called in to
disperse the dissidents. However, large numbers of students and
citizens blocked the army's advance, and by May 23 government
forces had pulled back to the outskirts of Beijing; June 3
- with negotiations to end the protests stalled and calls for
democratic reforms escalating, the troops received orders from the
Chinese government to reclaim Tiananmen at all costs; June 4
- Chinese troops had forcibly cleared Tiananmen Square and
Beijing's streets, killing hundreds of demonstrators and arresting
thousands of protesters and other suspected dissidents. In the
weeks after the government crackdown, an unknown number of
dissidents were executed, and communist hard-liners took firm
control of the country. International community was outraged at
the incident, and economic sanctions imposed by the United States
and other countries sent China's economy into decline.
May 4, 1989 - Fired White House aide Oliver North
was convicted of shredding documents and two other charges
stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. (The convictions were
overturned on appeal.).
May 16, 1989 - Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev
and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ended a 30-year rift when they
formally met in Beijing.
May 30, 1989 - Student demonstrators at Tiananmen
Square in Beijing erected a 33-foot statue they called the
''Goddess of Democracy.''.
May 31, 1989 - House Speaker Jim Wright,
D-Texas, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would
resign.
June 4, 1989 - Chinese army troops stormed
Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement;
hundreds - possibly thousands - of people died.
June 14, 1989
- Queen Elizabeth II knighted Ronald Reagan.
June 21, 1989 - The Supreme Court ruled that burning
the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by
the First Amendment.
June 22, 1989 - After nearly 15 years of civil war,
opposing factions in Angola agree to a cease-fire to end a
conflict that had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The
cease-fire also helped to defuse U.S.-Soviet tensions concerning
Angola (former Portuguese colony that had attained independence in
1975). The two most important were the National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was favored by the
United States, and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola (MPLA), which was supported by the Soviets. 1988
- Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union
was cutting its aid to both the MPLA and Cuba. 1992
- national elections resulted in an overwhelming victory for the
MPLA, and UNITA went back on the warpath; 1994 -
peace accord was signed between the MPLA government and UNITA;
1997 - government with representatives from both sides
was established; 1998 - fighting again broke out and
democracy was suspended; 2002 - leader of UNITA,
Jonas Savimbi, was murdered; cease-fire was reached, UNITA agreed
to give up its arms and participate in the government.
June 29, 1989 - Post Tiananmen Square, over Bush's
objections, the House of Representations unanimously passed a new
package of sanctions; included the proviso that the previous
sanctions enacted by Bush could not be lifted until there were
assurances that China was making progress in the area of human
rights. The new sanctions focused on economic and trade relations
with China. They suspended talks and funds for the expansion of
U.S.-Chinese trade, and also banned the shipment of police
equipment to China.
July 5, 1989 - Former National Security Council aide
Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term
for his part in Iran-Contra. The convictions were later
overturned.
August 1989 - Congress enacted the Financial
Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA);
required American taxpayers to contribute to the bailout of the
Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC); estimated
at $124 billion in 1999.
August 15, 1989 - Frederik de Klerk becomes
president of South Africa.
September 10, 1989 - Hungary stopped enforcing East
German visa restrictions and opened its borders, beginning a flood
of emigration that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall two months
later; first time one of the Warsaw Pact nations, which were
joined in the defensive alliance between Russia and its eastern
Europe satellites, broke from the practice of blocking citizens of
the communist nations from going to the West. The East German
government responded angrily, but there was little it could do to
stop the flow of its people into neighboring communist nations and
hence into Hungary en route to West Germany. Tens of thousands of
East Germans raced across their nation's borders into Poland and
Czechoslovakia, seeking asylum and permission to travel to West
Germany. Pro-democracy forces in East Germany took heart from
these actions, and the communist government began to crumble. In
November 1989, the East German government announced that the
Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin would be torn down and
the country would soon be united under a democratic government.
September 20, 1989 - F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as
president of South Africa.
September 21, 1989 - Senate Armed Forces Committee
unanimously confirms President George H. Bush's nomination of Army
General Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Powell was the first African American to achieve the United
States' highest military post.
September 26, 1989 - Committees in the Soviet
legislature pass a bill allowing the publication of books,
newspapers, and magazines without government approval. The law was
a break with the Soviet past, in which government censorship of
the press was a fact of life. Law was evidence that Gorbachev was
intent on making good his promise to open up the Soviet political
system. Soviet journalists and writers celebrated the act, but
Gorbachev's reforms to the Soviet system may have been too little,
too late. In a little more than two years, economic and political
turmoil in the Soviet Union destroyed his power base.
October 1, 1989 - Thousands of East Germans received
a triumphal welcome after the communist government agreed to let
them flee to West Germany.
October 7, 1989 - Hungary's Communist Party
renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism during a party
congress in Budapest.
October 8, 1989 - The Latvian Popular Front
announced its intention to seek independence from the USSR.
October 18, 1989 - Erich Honecker was ousted as
leader of East Germany after 18 years in power. Replaced by Egon
Krenz as the Communist Party leader. Krenz enjoyed a good deal of
popular support due to his role as a peacemaker in the
demonstrations earlier in October (Honecker ordered troops to be
prepared to open fire on demonstrators in Leipzig. Luckily, Krenz,
then in charge of security, arrived in Leipzig two days later to
rescind Honecker's order. Krenz's attempt to save the party's
image by preventing violence merely allowed the revolution to
proceed in a non-violent manner). Iron Curtain nations of East
Germany and Hungary take significant steps toward ending the
communist domination of their countries to replace it with more
democratic politics and free market economies. Hungary was
proclaimed a free republic. Represented steadily weakening hold of
the Soviet Union over its East European satellites.
November 1, 1989 - East Germany reopened its border
with Czechoslovakia and thousands of refugees to fled to the West.
November 7, 1989
- Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg asked President Bush to withdraw
his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the clamor that
arose over Ginsburg's admission that he had smoked marijuana.
November 9, 1989 - East German officials opened the
Berlin Wall, allowing travel from East to West Berlin. The
following day, celebrating Germans began to tear the wall down.
One of the ugliest and most infamous symbols of the Cold War was
soon reduced to rubble that was quickly snatched up by souvenir
hunters. The East German action followed a decision by Hungarian
officials a few weeks earlier to open the border between Hungary
and Austria. This effectively ended the purpose of the Berlin
Wall, since East German citizens could now circumvent it by going
through Hungary, into Austria, and thence into West Germany. The
decision to open the wall was also a reflection of the immense
political changes taking place in East Germany, where the old
communist leadership was rapidly losing power and the populace was
demanding free elections and movement toward a free market system.
November 12, 1989 - Brazil holds first free
presidential election in 29 years.
November 28, 1989 - Confronted by the collapse of
communist regimes in neighboring countries and growing protests in
the streets, officials of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party
announce that they will give up their monopoly on political power.
Elections held the following month brought the first noncommunist
government to office in over 40 years.
November 29, 1989 - Czechoslovakia ended 41 years of
one-party communist rule when the parliament voted unanimously to
repeal the constitutional clauses giving the Community Party a
guaranteed leading role in the country and promoting
Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology. The success of the "Velvet
Revolution" in Czechoslovakia (so-called because of its relatively
peaceful nature) was another sign of the ebbing fortunes of
communism in eastern Europe. The fact that the Soviet Union
refrained from action (unlike 1968, when Soviet tanks crushed
protesters in Prague) signaled the waning power of the communist
giant, as well as Gorbachev's commitment to economic and political
reform in the eastern bloc.
December 1, 1989 - Pope John Paul II and Mikhail
Gorbachev met in Rome, ending 70 years of hostility between the
Vatican and the USSR.
December 3, 1989 - President George Bush and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, meeting off the coast of Malta in
a first-ever summit held between the two leaders, issue statements
strongly suggesting that the long-standing animosities at the core
of the Cold War might be coming to an end. Both sides agreed to
work toward a treaty dealing with long-range nuclear weapons and
conventional arms in 1990. Gorbachev and Bush also agreed that
another summit would take place in June 1990, in Washington, DC.
December 20, 1989 - The United States launched
Operation Just Cause, sending troops into Panama to topple the
government of General Manuel Noriega who had been indicted in the
United States on drug trafficking charges and was accused of
suppressing democracy in Panama and endangering U.S. nationals.
Noriega's Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) were promptly crushed,
forced the dictator to seek asylum with the Vatican anuncio in
Panama City, where he surrendered on January 3, 1990; first time
that United States military forces have been sent into combat
since the air strike against the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi, in April 1986. The last large-scale engagement by
American ground forces took place during the invasion of Grenada
in October 1983.
December 22, 1989 - Romanian President Nicolae
Ceausescu, the last of Eastern Europe's hard-line Communist
rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising;
December 25, 1989 - Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena,
were executed.
December 28, 1989 - Alexander Dubcek, former
Czechoslovak leader and architect of the "Prague Spring," is
elected chairman of the new multiparty Czechoslovak parliament. It
was the first time Dubcek held public office since being deprived
of Communist Party membership in 1970. In 1989, as communist
governments folded across Eastern Europe, Prague again became the
scene of demonstrations for democratic reforms. In December 1989,
Husak's government conceded to demands for a multiparty
parliament. Husak resigned, and for the first time in two decades
Dubcek returned to politics as chairman of the new parliament,
which subsequently elected playwright Vaclav Havel as president of
Czechoslovakia. Havel had come to fame during the Prague Spring,
and after the Soviet crackdown his plays were banned and his
passport confiscated.
December 29, 1989 - Playwright Vaclav Havel was
elected president of Czechoslovakia by the country's Federal
Assembly, becoming the first non-Communist to attain the post in
more than four decades.
January 3, 1990 - Ousted Panamanian leader Manuel
Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in
the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City, to
face charges of drug trafficking. July 10, 1992 -
former dictator was convicted of drug trafficking, money
laundering and racketeering and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
January 16, 1990 - Soviet government sends in
11,000 troops to quell the conflict in Azerbaijan. The
fighting--and the official Soviet reaction to it--was an
indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet
government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, and of
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's weakening political power.
Strife in Azerbaijan was the result of centuries of tensions
between the Islamic Azerbaijanis and the Christian Armenians.
Armenians took the brunt of the attacks and nearly 60 people were
killed. Armenian spokesmen condemned the lack of action on the
part of the Gorbachev regime and pleaded for military
intervention. Troops Gorbachev sent did little to alleviate the
situation--over the next two years, ethnic violence in Azerbaijan
continued, and the weakening Soviet regime was unable to bring a
lasting resolution to the situation. Less than two years later,
Gorbachev resigned from power and the Soviet Union ceased to
exist.
February 2, 1990 - South African President F.W. de
Klerk lifted a ban on the African National Congress and promised
to free Nelson Mandela.
February 7, 1990 - Central Committee of the Soviet
Union's Communist Party agrees to endorse President Mikhail
Gorbachev's recommendation that the party give up its 70-year long
monopoly of political power. The Committee's decision to allow
political challenges to the party's dominance in Russia was yet
another signal of the impending collapse of the Soviet system;
December 25, 1991 - President Gorbachev resigned;
December 31, 1991 - Soviet Union officially ceased to
exist.
February 11, 1990 - South African black activist
Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in captivity.
February 26, 1990 - A year after agreeing to free
elections, Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government loses at the
polls; Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas suffered a stunning
defeat when Violeta Barrios de Chamarro, widow of a newspaper
editor assassinated during the Somoza years, polled over 55
percent of the presidential vote. The opposition also captured the
National Assembly = repudiation of over 10 years of Sandinista
rule that had been characterized by a destructive war with the
Contras and a failing economic system. The elections brought an
end to more than a decade of U.S. efforts to unseat the Sandinista
government; administration of President George Bush immediately
announced an end to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua and pledged
new economic assistance; 1979 - Sandinistas came to
power when they overthrew long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza;
U.S. officials opposed the new regime, claiming that it was
Marxist in its orientation. In the face of this opposition, the
Sandinistas turned to the communist bloc for economic and military
assistance; 1981 - President Ronald Reagan gave his
approval for covert U.S. support of the so-called
Contras-anti-Sandinista rebels based mostly in Honduras and Costa
Rica.
March 1, 1990 - The Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power
plant won federal permission to go on line after two decades of
protests and legal struggles.
March 9, 1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as
surgeon general, becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic
to hold the job.
March 11, 1990 - The Lithuanian parliament voted to
break away from the Soviet Union and restore its independence;
first Soviet republic to do so. The Soviet government responded by
imposing an oil embargo and economic blockade against the Baltic
republic, and later sent troops. Sajudis, a non-communist
coalition established in 1988, subsequently won control of the
Lithuanian parliament and Vytautas Landsbergis became Lithuania's
first post-Soviet head of state. January 1991 - Soviet
paratroopers and tanks invaded Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital,
beginning a standoff that lasted until September 6, 1991, when the
crumbling Soviet Union agreed to grant independence to Lithuania
and the other Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia.
March 14, 1990 - Congress of People's Deputies
elects General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to a five-year term as
the new president of the Soviet Union. While the election was a
victory for Gorbachev, it also demonstrated the problems he faced
in trying to formulate a domestic consensus supporting his
political reform program; December 1991 - resigned
as president, and the Soviet Union dissolved.
March 19, 1990 -
Latvia's political opposition claimed victory in the republic's
first free elections in 50 years.
March 20, 1990 - Namibia became an independent
nation, marking the end of 75 years of South African rule.
March 27, 1990 - U.S. government begins the
operation of TV Marti, which broadcast television programs into
communist Cuba. The project marked yet another failed attempt to
undermine the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro; put together
under the auspices of the Voice of America, the U.S. radio and
television broadcasting system established in the 1940s to beam
news and propaganda throughout the world; TV Marti, was primarily
the result of intense lobbying by Cuban-American interest groups
and a handful of senators and representatives from south Florida
and New Jersey; tried to give Cubans an accurate look at American
life; dismal failure in terms of weakening the Castro regime, it
continues to receive funding and is still in operation.
April 7, 1990 - Former national security adviser
John M. Poindexter was convicted of five counts at his Iran-Contra
trial. (A federal appeals court later reversed the convictions).
April 12, 1990 - First meeting of East German
democratically elected parliament, acknowledges responsibility for
Nazi holocaust and asks for forgiveness.
April 13, 1990 - The Soviet Union accepted
responsibility for the World War II murders and mass burials of
nearly 5,000 Polish military officers in the Katyn Forest, a
massacre the Soviets had previously blamed on the Nazis. The
admission was part of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's promise to
be more forthcoming and candid concerning Soviet history.
April 24, 1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted
off from Cape Canaveral, FL; carried $1.5 billion Hubble Space
Telescope.
April 25, 1990 - The crew of the U.S. space shuttle
Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-term
space-based observatory, into a low orbit around Earth; designed
to give astronomers an unparalleled view of the solar system, the
galaxy, and the universe; has a resolution 10 times that of
ground-based observatories. About the size of a bus, the telescope
is solar-powered and orbits Earth once every 97 minutes. Among its
many astronomical achievements, Hubble has been used to record a
comet's collision with Jupiter, provide a direct look at the
surface of Pluto, view distant galaxies, gas clouds, and black
holes, and see billions of years into the universe's past.
April 25, 1990 - Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was
inaugurated as president of Nicaragua, ending 11 years of leftist
Sandinista rule.
May 10, 1990 - The government of the People's
Republic of China announces that it is releasing 211 people
arrested during the massive protests held in Tiananmen Square in
Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the prisoner release
as an attempt by the communist government of China to dispel much
of the terrible publicity it received for its brutal suppression
of the 1989 protests.
May 17, 1990 - Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev meets with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera
Prunskiene in Moscow in an effort to settle differences arising
from Lithuania's recent proclamation of independence from the
Soviet Union. For Gorbachev, the meeting was a test of his skill
and ability to maintain the crumbling Soviet empire. Lithuania
became part of the Soviet Union after Soviet forces seized it in
1939, and the country remained a Soviet republic for the next 50
years. January 1991 - Soviet Union launched a full-scale military
assault against Lithuania; December 1991 - 11 of the
12 Soviet Socialist Republics (including Lithuania) proclaimed
their independence and established the Commonwealth of Independent
States. A few weeks later, Gorbachev resigned as president and the
Soviet Union ceased to exist.
May 29, 1990 -
Russian parliament elected
Boris N. Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian republic.
May 30, 1990 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
arrives in Washington, DC, for three days of talks with President
George Bush (second summit meeting with Bush). The summit meeting
centered on the issue of Germany and its place in a changing
Europe. Ended with no clear agreement on the future of Germany.
Russia's pressing economic needs, however, soon led to a
breakthrough. July 1990 - Bush promised Gorbachev a
large economic aid package and vowed that the German army would
remain relatively small. The Soviet leader dropped his opposition
to German membership in NATO. October 1990 - East
and West Germany formally reunified and shortly thereafter joined
NATO.
June 1, 1990 - At a superpowers summit meeting in
Washington, DC, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev sign a historic agreement to end production of
chemical weapons and begin the destruction of both nations'
sizable reserves of them. According to the agreement, on-site
inspectors from both countries would observe the destruction
process. called for an 80 percent reduction of their chemical
weapon arsenals, was part of an effort to create a climate of
change that would discourage smaller nations from stockpiling and
using the lethal weapons. 1993 - U.S., Russia, and
150 other nations signed a comprehensive treaty banning chemical
weapons. 1997 - The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty.
June 11, 1990 - The Supreme Court struck down a
federal law prohibiting desecration of the American flag.
June 11, 1990 - Federal judge sentenced former
national security adviser John M Poindexter to 6 months for making
false statements to Congress.
June 25, 1990 - The US Supreme Court upheld
the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to
refuse life-sustaining medical treatment.
June 26, 1990 - President George H.W. Bush, who had
campaigned for office on a pledge of ''no new taxes,'' conceded
that tax increases would have to be included in any
deficit-reduction package.
June 30, 1990 - East and West Germany merge their
economies.
July 10, 1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev withstands severe
criticisms from his opponents and is re-elected head of the Soviet
Communist Party by an overwhelming margin.
July 12, 1990 - Boris Yeltsin, president of the
Russian republic, resigned from the Communist Party.
July 20, 1990 - A federal appeals court set aside
Oliver North's Iran-Contra convictions.
July 24, 1990 - Iraq massed tens of thousands of
troops and hundreds of tanks along its border with Kuwait.
July 26, 1990 - President George H.W. Bush
signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Act
prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in
employment, in public services, in public accommodations and in
telecommunications. EEOC is responsible for enforcing
prohibition against discrimination against people with
disabilities in employment. The ADA has been described as the
Emancipation Proclamation for the disability community.
July 26, 1990 - The House of Representatives
reprimanded Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., for ethics violations.
July 28, 1990 - Alberto Fujimoro installed as
president of Peru.
August 2, 1990 - Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing
control of the oil-rich emirate. The emir of Kuwait, his family,
and other government leaders fled to Saudi Arabia, and within
hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established
a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control
of 20 percent of the world's oil reserves and, for the first time,
a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf. August 6 - the United
Nations Security Council imposed a worldwide ban on trade with
Iraq;
August 7, 1990 - President George H.W. Bush ordered
U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich
desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq;
August 9 - Operation Desert Shield, the American
defense of Saudi Arabia, began as U.S. forces raced to the Persian
Gulf. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, built up his
occupying army in Kuwait to about 300,000 troops;
September 23, 1990 - Iraq threatened to destroy Middle
East oil fields and attack Israel if other nations tried to force
it from Kuwait.
August 12, 1990 - Iraq President Saddam
Hussein says he is ready to resolve Gulf crisis if Israel
withdraws from occupied territories.
August 31, 1990 - East Germany and West Germany
signed a reunification treaty.
September 9, 1990 - Bush and Gorbachev meet in
Helsinki and urge Iraq to leave Kuwait.
September 10, 1990 - Iran agrees to resume
diplomatic ties with Iraq.
September 12, 1990 - Representatives from the United
States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union sign an
agreement giving up all occupation rights in Germany. The largely
symbolic action cleared the way for East and West Germany to
reunite. November 1989 - the East German government
announced that the Berlin Wall would be torn down. 1990 -
representatives from East and West Germany began negotiations to
finally reunite their country. Among the many obstacles to
overcome was the historical legacy of occupation by the Allied
forces. Although the four Allies had long since removed their
occupation forces and given up most of their occupation rights,
some treaty rights still technically remained--for instance, the
four countries still had the right to "oversee" Berlin.
October 1990 - East and West Germany formally reunited
under a democratic government.
September 23, 1990 - Iraq threatened to destroy
Middle East oil fields and attack Israel if other nations tried to
force it from Kuwait.
September 27, 1990 - The Senate Judiciary Committee
approved the Supreme Court nomination of David H. Souter.
September 30, 1990 - President George Bush proposed
tax hike of $134 billion over five years; package of increases
affected gas, cigarettes, alcohol, and luxury goods; meant as an
antidote to the ever-swelling federal deficit; the president and
his staff estimated that the taxes would trim the debt by $40
billion in the coming fiscal year and $500 billion over five
years.
October 2, 1990 - The Senate voted 90-9 to confirm
the nomination of Judge David H. Souter to the Supreme Court;
October 9, 1990 - David Souter was sworn in as an
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
October 3, 1990 - West Germany and East Germany
ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a
new unified country. It is the smallest unified German state to
rise in the 119 years since Otto von Bismarck first gathered the
Germans under the Prussian crown; German lawmakers met in the
Reichstag in Berlin for the first meeting of reunified Germany's
parliament.
October 15, 1990 - South Africa's Separate Amenities
Act, which had barred blacks from public facilities for decades,
was scrapped.
November 7, 1990 - Mary Robinson elected as first
female president of Ireland.
November 12, 1990 - Crown Prince Akihito formally
assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne, two years after the death of his
father; 125th Japanese monarch along an imperial line dating back
to 660 B.C.; first Japanese monarch to reign solely as an official
figurehead. 1959 - broke a 1,500-year-old tradition
and married a commoner, Shoda Michiko, the daughter of a wealthy
businessman. Upon becoming emperor, Akihito, an amateur marine
biologist and accomplished cellist, commenced a new Japanese era,
known as Heisei, or "Achieving Peace."
November 21, 1990 - Leaders of NATO and Warsaw Pact
member states signed the Charter of Paris and a treaty on
conventional forces in Europe, bringing an end to the Cold War.
November 22, 1990 - British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, having failed to win re-election to the Conservative
Party leadership on the first ballot, announced her resignation.
In 1987, an upswing in the economy led to her election to a third
term, but Thatcher soon alienated some members of her own party
because of her poll-tax policies and opposition to further British
integration into the European Community. In November 1990, she
failed to receive a majority in the Conservative Party's annual
vote for selection of a leader. She withdrew her nomination, and
John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1989, was chosen
as Conservative leader. On November 22, she announced her
resignation and six days later was succeeded by Major. Thatcher's
three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous
tenure of a British prime minister since 1827. In 1992, she was
made a baroness and took a seat in the House of Lords.
November 26, 1990 - After 31 years, Lee Kuan Yew
stepped down as Singapore's prime minister.
November 27, 1990 - The Conservative Party chose
John Major to succeed former British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher as party leader.
November 29, 1990 -
The U.N. Security Council
passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if
it failed to withdraw by January 15, 1991. Hussein refused to
withdraw his forces from Kuwait, which he had established as a
province of Iraq, and some 700,000 allied troops, primarily
American, gathered in the Middle East to enforce the
deadline.
December 2, 1990 - West German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl was elected chancellor of a united Germany.
December 9, 1990 - In Poland, Lech Walesa, leader of
the Solidarity trade union, won a landslide victory over
transitional Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, becoming the first
democratically-elected Polish leader in over six decades.
December 9, 1990 - Slobodan Milosovic (Serbian
Socialist Party) was elected president in Serbia's first free
elections in 50 years.
December 17, 1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a
radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of
Jean-Claude Duvalier, is elected president of Haiti in a landslide
victory. It was the first free election in Haiti's history.
However, less than one year later, in September 1991, Aristide was
deposed in a bloody military coup. He escaped to exile, and a
three-man junta took power.
December 22, 1990 - Lech Walesa took the oath of
office as Poland's first popularly elected president.
January 2, 1991 - Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as
mayor of Washington, DC, becoming the first black woman to head a
city of Washington's size and prominence.
