WORLD Events (20th Century)
1901
Marconi sends first transatlantic radio message from Britain
----------------------
1901
Death of Queen Victoria
----------------------
1901
Edward VII comes to English throne
----------------------
1901
Commonwealth of Australia established
----------------------
1902
Death of Emile Zola (writer)
----------------------
1902
Eruption of Mount Pelée, Martinique (40,000 killed)
----------------------
1902
Boers surrender to British forces in South Africa
----------------------
1903
Wright Brothers make first controlled flight in aeroplane
----------------------
1903
Henry Ford designs first mass-produced cars
----------------------
1903
Bolshevik Party established in Russia
----------------------
1904
Russo-Japanese War
----------------------
1904
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov wins Nobel Prize for work on animal behaviour
----------------------
1905
Norway separates from Sweden
----------------------
1905
Trans-Siberian Railway completed
----------------------
1905
"Bloody Sunday" massace of protestors in St Petersburg
----------------------
1905
Sir Albert Einstein develops special theory of relativity
----------------------
1905
Sinn Fein, Irish nationalist (Republican) movement, founded
----------------------
1906
Movement for Women's Suffrage becomes active in Britain
----------------------
1906
Liberal landslide government in Britain
----------------------
1906
Norwegian Roald Amundsen navigates North-West Passage
----------------------
1907
Entente Cordiale between Russia, Britain and France
----------------------
1908
Herbert Asquith becomes Liberal Prime Minister
----------------------
1908
Lord Baden-Powell founds Boy Scouts and Girl Guides
----------------------
1908
"Young Turk" Revolution establishes constitution in Turkey
----------------------
1908
Bulgaria liberated from Turkish rule by Russia
----------------------
1909
American Robert Peary first to reach North Pole
----------------------
1909
Union of South Africa established
----------------------
1909
Arnold Schoenberg explores musical atonality
----------------------
1909
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque develop Cubism
----------------------
1910
First Post-Impressionist art exhibition (Cezanne/Van Gogh/Gauguin) in
London
----------------------
1910
Death of Florence Nightingale (nurse and hospital reformer)
----------------------
1910
George V succedes to British throne
----------------------
1910
Portuguese monarchy abolished in favour of republic
----------------------
1910
Mexican Revolution under Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa leads to
civil war
----------------------
1910
Futurist Manifesto (modern art movement) published in Italy
----------------------
1911
Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes first to reach South Pole
----------------------
1911
Vasily Kandinsky experiments with abstract expressionism
----------------------
1911
Chinese Revolution - Sun Yat-Sen establishes Republic
----------------------
1912
African National Congress (ANC) formed in South Africa to fight
apartheid
----------------------
1913
Rabindranath Tagore receives Nobel Prize for Literature
----------------------
1913
Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" causes uproar
----------------------
1913
Nijinsky and Pavlova perfoming Fokine and Diaghilev's ballets
----------------------
1914
First World War - Germany/Austria vs Britain/France/Russia
----------------------
1914
Panama Canal opened
----------------------
1914
Charlie Chaplin makes his first silent movies
----------------------
1915
Albert Einstein publishes General Theory of Relativity
----------------------
1916
Inconclusive battles at Verdun and Somme in France
----------------------
1916
Grigory Rasputin murdered by nobles of Nicholas II's court
----------------------
1916
Unsuccessful Easter Rising by Irish Republicans
----------------------
1916
Tristan Tzara develops Dada art movement
----------------------
1917
Democratic constition established in Mexico
----------------------
1917
Chicago takes over from New Orleans as capital of jazz
----------------------
1917
US enters First World War - balance tips in Allies' favour
----------------------
1917
Bolshevik Revolution under Vladimir Ilych Lenin and Leon Trotsky
----------------------
1918
Lawrence of Arabia aids British forces in Middle East
----------------------
1918
Tsar Nicholas II killed
----------------------
1918
Bolsheviks end Russian involvment in First World War
----------------------
1918
End of First World War (25m killed) - Versailles Conference
----------------------
1918
Women over 30 granted right to vote in Britain
----------------------
1918
Earnest Rutherford splits the atom
----------------------
1918
Jewish League formed by David Ben Gurion
----------------------
1919
Start of "Indianization" of civil service
----------------------
1919
Amritsar Massacre - beginning of limited self-rule
----------------------
1919
Death of Adelina Patti (opera singer)
----------------------
1919
Irish Republican Army (IRA) formed as radical military wing of Sinn
Fein
----------------------
1919
Treaty of Versailles - Germany loses annexed lands and colonies
----------------------
1919
Germany proclaimed a republic
----------------------
1919
Bauhaus art movement developed by architect Walter Gropius
----------------------
1919
Prohibition of alcohol in North America
----------------------
1919
Kemal Atatürk leads Turkish nationlist resistance
----------------------
1919
Jewish Zionists start immigration into Palestine
----------------------
1919
Poland recognized as independent state after First World War
----------------------
1919
League of Nations formed
----------------------
1920
Russo-Polish War
----------------------
1921
Chinese Communist Party founded
----------------------
1921
Economic collapse and famine in Russia - 5 million die
----------------------
1921
Modern Persian state created by Resa Khan
----------------------
1921
Greece declares war on Turkey
----------------------
1922
TS Eliot writes "The Waste Land"
----------------------
1922
Dane Niels Bohr wins Nobel Prize for work on atomic theory
----------------------
1922
Fascist Benito Mussolini siezes power as dictator in Italy
----------------------
1922
James Joyce writes "Ulysses"
----------------------
1922
Ireland partitioned into Ulster (North) and Irish Free State (South)
----------------------
1922
Republic of Turkey declared under Kemal Pasha
----------------------
1922
Britain grants independence to Egypt
----------------------
1923
Arnold Schoenberg develops 12-tone system of music
----------------------
1924
First Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald voted in Britain
----------------------
1924
André Breton publishes first Surrealist Manifesto
----------------------
1924
Joseph Stalin becomes Premiere of Russia after Death of Lenin
----------------------
1924
Greece declares itself a republic
----------------------
1925
France Kafka writes "The Trial"
----------------------
1925
Art Deco movement at its height
----------------------
1926
General Strike in Britain
----------------------
1926
Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan
----------------------
1926
Antonio Salazar leads military coup in Portugal
----------------------
1927
Werner Heisenberg publishes treatise on Uncertainty Principle
----------------------
1927
Charles Lindburgh makes first solo flight of Atlantic
----------------------
1927
First "talkie" movie - "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson
----------------------
1927
Leon Trotsky expelled from Communist Party
----------------------
1928
Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
----------------------
1928
Equal adult suffrage established in Britain
----------------------
1928
Kuomintang under Chang Kai-Shek subdues Chinese warlords
----------------------
1928
Walt Disney introduces character of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie"
----------------------
1928
Bessie Smith recording first Blues songs
----------------------
1929
Kurt Weill writes "Threepenny Opera"
----------------------
1929
Valentines Day Massacre - Al Capone gains control of Chicago
underworld
----------------------
1929
US Stock Market Crash
----------------------
1929
Massive collectivization push in Russia under Stalin
----------------------
1930
Mahatma Ghandi leads Salt March in India
----------------------
1930
Civil War in China between Nationalists and Communists
----------------------
1930
Pluto (last planet) discovered by Clyde Tombaugh
----------------------
1930
Coup in Brazil, start of Vargas dictatorship
----------------------
1930
Heile Selassie becomes Emperor of Ethiopia
----------------------
1931
National Coalition Government in Britain
----------------------
1931
Japanese invade Manchuria
----------------------
1931
Spain proclaimed a republic under Communist rule
----------------------
1932
Eamonn de Valera becomes Republican Fianna Fail leader
----------------------
1933
Adolph Hitler becomes dictator after coup
----------------------
1933
End of Prohibition of alcohol
----------------------
1933
FD Roosevelt becomes US President
----------------------
1934
Long March by Chinese communists under Mao Tse-Tung
----------------------
1934
Bonnie Parke and Clyde Barrow ("Bonnie and Clyde") killed in Louisiana
----------------------
1934
Social Realism art movement encouraged in Russia
----------------------
1935
Benito Mussolini invades Abyssinia
----------------------
1935
France concludes pact of mutual assistance with Russia
----------------------
1935
Germany under Hitler begins persecution of Jews (6m killed)
----------------------
1935
Count Basie leads his Big Band Orchestra
----------------------
1936
King George V dies - Edward VIII abdicates - George VI accedes
----------------------
1936
Popular Front government in France under Léon Blum
----------------------
1936
Joe Louis becomes heavyweight boxing champion
----------------------
1936
Great purge of Russian political parties by Stalin
----------------------
1936
Spanish Civil War starts
----------------------
1936
Assassination of Federico Garcيa Lorca (Spanish poet)
----------------------
1937
Neville Chamberlaine's government appeases Germany and Italy
----------------------
1937
Japanese advance into Northern China and Mongolia
----------------------
1937
Eire (Southern Ireland) declares itself completely independent state
----------------------
1937
German bombing of Guernica, Northern Spain
----------------------
1938
Enrico Fermi wins Nobel Prize for work on atomic energy
----------------------
1938
Hitler siezes Austria (Anschluss) and Czechoslovakia
----------------------
1939
Russia signs non-agression pact with Hitler's Germany
----------------------
1939
Britain and France enter Second World War after Hitler invades Poland
----------------------
1939
Fascists under Francisco Franco triumph in Spanish Civil War
----------------------
1940
Sir Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister
----------------------
1940
Battle of Britain - Germany defeated in air
----------------------
1940
Marshal Pétain agrees armistice with Hitler - France occupied
----------------------
1940
Japan occupies Indo-China
----------------------
1941
Germany invades Russia - Russia enters Second World War
----------------------
1941
Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbour brings US into Second World War
----------------------
1941
Josip Broz Tito leads coommunist revolution in Yugoslavia
----------------------
1942
British army under Montgomery drives Germans out of Egypt
----------------------
1942
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus develop Existentialism
----------------------
1942
Manhattan Project established to develop atomic bomb
----------------------
1943
Mussolini overthrown and Fascist Party dissolved
----------------------
1944
D-Day - Allies make crucial push into France
----------------------
1944
Charles de Gaulle organizes provisional government after Paris
liberated
----------------------
1945
Germany surrenders - end of Second World War (45m killed)
----------------------
1945
US drops first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Japan
surrenders
----------------------
1945
Clement Attlee becomes Labour Prime Minister of Britain
----------------------
1945
Jackson Pollock pioneers action painting
----------------------
1945
ENIAC considered to be first functional computer
----------------------
1945
Russian intransigence after Potsdam conference starts "Cold War"
----------------------
1945
Death of King Zog of Albania
----------------------
1945
United Nations (UN) formed
----------------------
1946
Italy votes to become a republic
----------------------
1946
Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal
----------------------
1946
League of Nations formally abandoned
----------------------
1947
British withdraw from India - Partition of India and Pakistan
----------------------
1947
"Iron Curtain" effectively drawn around Soviet-controlled countries
----------------------
1947
US Marshall Plan aid spurs European economic recovery
----------------------
1948
George Orwell writes "1984"
----------------------
1948
British pull out of Palestine - state of Israel established
----------------------
1948
Enver Hoxha leads Albania as independent Stalinist state
----------------------
1948
Organization of American States (OAS) formed
----------------------
1948
Afrikaaner National Party comes to power in South Africa - apartheid
----------------------
1948
Korea divided into North and South Republics
----------------------
1948
Mahatma Ghandi assassinated
----------------------
1949
People's Republic of China proclaimed by Mao Tse-Tung
----------------------
1949
West Germany declared a republic - Konrad Adenauer is Chanceller
----------------------
1949
Comecon setablished to coordinate Soviet block economies
----------------------
1949
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed
----------------------
1949
Council of Europe formed
----------------------
1949
Indonesia gains independence from Netherlands
----------------------
1949
William Faulkner wins Nobel Prize for Literature
----------------------
1950
Bertrand Russell receives Nobel Prize for Literature
----------------------
1950
Korean War starts - Communist North vs Capitalist South
----------------------
1950
US becomes involved in Korean War
----------------------
1951
ANZUS Pact signed by Australia, New Zealand and USA
----------------------
1951
American post-war occupation of Japan ends
----------------------
1952
George VI dies - Elizabeth II takes British throne
----------------------
1952
Bolivian Revolution
----------------------
1952
Coup deposes King Farouk of Egypt
-----------------------
1952
Death of Eva Perَn ("Evita") in Argentina
----------------------
1952
Huge collectivization push in rural China
----------------------
1952
Samuel Beckett develops Theatre of the Absurd - "Waiting for Godot"
----------------------
1952
Dwight Eisenhower becomes US President
----------------------
1953
New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary first to reach summit of Everest
----------------------
1953
Death of Josef Stalin - Nikita Khruschev becomes Premiere
----------------------
1953
Soviets successfully test hydrogen bomb
----------------------
1953
Mau Mau Rebellion breaks out in Kenya
----------------------
1953
Korean War ends after involving China, US and several other countries
----------------------
1954
Vietnam divided - Laos and Cambodia recognized as independent
----------------------
1954
Rock'n'Roll music becomes popular - Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, etc
----------------------
1954
Anti-Communist McCarthyism censured in US
----------------------
1955
Coup deposes dictator Juan Perَn in Argentina
----------------------
1955
Warsaw Pact signed by USSR, Poland, Romania, Hungary,
Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Albania
----------------------
1956
Suez Crisis - Britain and France invade Egypt
----------------------
1956
Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes President of Egyptian Republic
----------------------
1956
Hungarian revolt brutally suppressed by Soviets
----------------------
1956
"My Fair Lady" popular musical
----------------------
1957
Sir Harold MacMillan becomes British Prime Minister
----------------------
1957
Russian Sputnik sattelite launched
----------------------
1957
European Economic Comunity (EEC) established
----------------------
1957
Ghana first African colony to gain independence from Britain
----------------------
1957
India claims state of Kashmir
----------------------
1958
Dalai Lama flees Tibet from Chinese persecution
----------------------
1958
Charles de Gaulle given extensive powers in France
----------------------
1958
Ayub Khan becomes military leader of Pakistan
----------------------
1958
Oral contraceptive pill becomes available
----------------------
1959
Fidel Castro establishes communist dictatorship in Cuba
----------------------
1960
Construction of Aswan High Dam in Egypt begins
----------------------
1960
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) established
----------------------
1960
Congo gains independence from Belgium
----------------------
1960
Communist North Vietnam starts war against Capitalist South
----------------------
1961
Cuban Missile Crisis after US-backed anti-Castro invasion fails
----------------------
1961
Berlin Wall built between East and West Germany
----------------------
1961
Russian Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space
----------------------
1961
South Africa declares republic and leaves British Commonwealth
----------------------
1961
Portugal loses its territories in Goa, India
----------------------
1962
Georges Pompidou takes over after vote against Charles de Gaulle
----------------------
1962
Yemenese Civil War
----------------------
1963
The Beatles rise to popularity
----------------------
1963
US President John F Kennedy shot
----------------------
1964
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) formed
----------------------
1964
Nelson Mandela jailed for campaigning against apartheid in South
Africa
----------------------
1964
Kenya becomes republic under Jomo Kenyatta
----------------------
1964
Indian Prime Minister Jahawarlal Nehru dies
----------------------
1964
Military dictatorship established in Brazil
----------------------
1964
Civil Rights Act passed in US
----------------------
1964
US becomes involved in Vietnam War
----------------------
1965
White government declares independence in Southern Rhodesia
----------------------
1965
Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of Philippines
----------------------
1966
Cultural Revolution begins in China
----------------------
1967
Sir Francis Chichester first to sail around world single-handed
----------------------
1967
Che Guevara, Cuban revolutionary leader, killed in Bolivia
----------------------
1967
First Arab-Israeli (6-Day) War
----------------------
1967
General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT) formulated
----------------------
1967
Nigerian Civil War - Biafra famine
----------------------
1967
First human heart transplant performed in South Africa
----------------------
1967
"Flower Power" at its height in California
----------------------
1968
C Day Lewis becomes British Poet Laureate
----------------------
1968
Albania withdraws from Warsaw Pact for ideological reasons
----------------------
1968
Prague Spring uprising in Czechoslovakia crushed by Soviets
----------------------
1968
Pierre Trudeau becomes Prime Minister of Canada
----------------------
1968
Black rights campaigner Martin Luther King assassinated
----------------------
1969
British supersonic aircraft Concorde makes maiden flight
----------------------
1969
Border disputes between China and Russia
----------------------
1969
Provisional IRA, terrorist offshoot of IRA, formed
----------------------
1969
Catholic vs Protestant "Troubles" resume in Ireland
----------------------
1969
Willi Brandt becomes German Chanceller
----------------------
1969
Moammar al-Qaddafi (Gadafi) leads military coup in Libya
----------------------
1969
Neil Armstrong becomes first man to walk on Moon
----------------------
1969
US involvement in Vietnam War peaks
----------------------
1970
Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path") Maoist guerrilla group founded in
Peru
----------------------
1971
Revolution in Ethiopia overthrows Haile Selassie
----------------------
1971
Indira Ghandi becomes Prime Minister of India
----------------------
1971
Indo-Pakistan War - Bangladesh declared independent republic
----------------------
1971
Rapprochement between US and China - Richard Nixon's visit
----------------------
1972
"Bloody Sunday" massacre in Ireland
----------------------
1972
British impose direct rule on Northern Ireland
----------------------
1972
Treaty recognizes East and West Germany as sovereign states
----------------------
1972
"Detente" - Strategic Ams Pact between Russia and the West
----------------------
1972
European Free Trade Agreement
----------------------
1972
President Idi Amin expels Asians from Uganda
----------------------
1972
Ceylon becomes independent Republic of Sri Lanka
----------------------
1973
Britain joins European Economic Community
----------------------
1973
General Augusto Pinochet ousts democratic Allende government in Chile
----------------------
1973
Second Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) War
----------------------
1973
Saudi Arabia leads huge oil price increases - world economy slows
----------------------
1973
US launches Pioneer II to explore outer planets
----------------------
1973
Henry Kissinger becomes US Secretary of State
----------------------
1974
Alexander Solzhenitsyn deported to the West
----------------------
1974
Turkey intervenes in Cyprus
----------------------
1974
PLO under Yasser Arafat recognized as representing Palestine
----------------------
1974
Portugal overthrows dictatorship - Antَnio de Spinola President
----------------------
1974
Portugal grants independence to Mozambique, Angola and other colonies
----------------------
1974
South Africa voted out of UN for apartheid policies
----------------------
1974
India explodes first nuclear device
----------------------
1974
Watergate Scandal - Richard Nixon quits as President
----------------------
1975
Birmingham Pub Bombings by IRA
----------------------
1975
Christian vs Muslim war in Lebanon
----------------------
1975
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia assassinated
----------------------
1975
Juan Carlos becomes King of Spain after Franco's death
----------------------
1975
Civil war breaks out in Angola
----------------------
1975
US pulls out of Vietnam War
----------------------
1975
Communists finally triumph in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
----------------------
1976
Punk (rebel muusic cult) develops - Sex Pistols, Clash, etc
----------------------
1976
Mao Tse-Tung dies - Gang of Four arrested
----------------------
1976
Giulio Andreotti leads minority government in Italy
----------------------
1976
Baader-Meinhof Gang (leftist terrorists) active in Germany
----------------------
1976
Free elections re-established in Spain
----------------------
1977
Israel under Menachem Begin starts West Bank settlements
----------------------
1977
Activist Steve Biko dies in custody in South Africa
----------------------
1977
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto executed after coup in Pakistan
----------------------
1978
Aldo Moro assassinated by leftist Red Brigade terrorists
----------------------
1978
ETA (Basque seperatist group) active in Spain
----------------------
1978
Radical reorganization of Cambodia by cruel Pol-Pot regime
----------------------
1978
Muhammed Zia Ul-Haq becomes hard-line Muslim President of Pakistan
----------------------
1979
Margaret Thatcher becomes British Prime Minister
----------------------
1979
Military coup in Bolivia
----------------------
1979
Somoza regime in Nicaragua ousted by leftist Sandinistas
----------------------
1979
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
----------------------
1979
Iranian Revolution - Ayatollah Khomeini proclaims Islamic Republic
----------------------
1979
Camp David Agreement brokers peace between Israel and Egypt
----------------------
1979
Idi Amin forced out of Uganda
----------------------
1979
"Boat People" start to flee Communist regime in Vietnam
----------------------
1979
President Park Chung Hee of South Korea assassinated
----------------------
1979
Three Mile Island nuclear reactor incident in US
----------------------
1980
Robert Mugabe leads first black government in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia)
----------------------
1980
John Lennon (singer) shot
----------------------
1980
Social Democratic Party formed
----------------------
1980
Deng Xiao-Ping becomes Chairman of China
----------------------
1980
Relations between East and West Germany deteriorate
----------------------
1980
Military coup in Turkey under Kenan Evren
----------------------
1980
Iran-Iraq War begins
----------------------
1980
Gdansk Shipyard Strike in Poland - Lech Walesa forms Solidarity
----------------------
1980
Tito dies - Yugoslavia's six states begin to argue
----------------------
1980
Iranian Hostage Crisis - hostages held in US Embassy in Tehran
----------------------
1980
Eruption of Mount St Helens (60 killed)
----------------------
1980
Ronald Reagan becomes US President
----------------------
1981
Black youths riot in British cities
----------------------
1981
IRA prisoners go on hunger strike - 10 die
----------------------
1981
François Mitterrand becomes first Socialist President of France
----------------------
1981
President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt assassinated by Muslim fundamentalists
----------------------
1981
Greece votes in Socialist Andreas Papandreou
----------------------
1981
AIDS becomes major health threat throughout world
----------------------
1982
Britain regain Falklands Islands (Malvinas) after Argentinian
occupation
----------------------
1982
Israel invades Lebanon - Israel-Lebanon War
----------------------
1982
Martial law in Poland ended by Solidarity action
----------------------
1983
Bettino Craxi leads coalition government
----------------------
1983
Helmut Kohl becomes German Chancellor
----------------------
1983
End of Israel-Lebanon War
----------------------
1983
Socialist government headed by Mلrio Soares in Portugal
----------------------
1983
Coloureds and Asians allowed vote in South Africa
----------------------
1983
Philippino opposition leader Benigno Aquino assassinated
----------------------
1984
Miners' Strike in Britain
----------------------
1984
Drought and famine in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan
----------------------
1984
Indira Ghandi assassinated by Sikhs - violence erupts in India
----------------------
1985
Brazil returns to democratic civilian rule
----------------------
1985
Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia claims 25,000 lives
----------------------
1985
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Russian Premiere - "Glasnost" and
"Perestroika"
----------------------
1985
Enver Hoxha dies - Albania gradually relaxes foreign relations
----------------------
1985
Pro-Solidarity Father Jerzy Popieluzsko assassinated in Poland
----------------------
1985
Tamil separatist resurgence in Sri Lanka
----------------------
1986
Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister
----------------------
1986
Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, contaminating most of Europe
----------------------
1986
Marcos flees country and Corazon Aquino takes power in Philippines
----------------------
1987
Russia and West sign first of several treaties to reduce nuclear arms
----------------------
1987
Iran-Contra Affair - arms for aid scandal
----------------------
1987
Intifada - Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation of Gaza and
West Bank
----------------------
1988
End of Iran-Iraq War
----------------------
1988
US and Canada sign free trade agreement
----------------------
1989
Pro-democracy protest in Tianenmen Square, Beijing, brutally crushed
----------------------
1989
Akihito succedes his father Hirohito as Emperor of Japan
----------------------
1989
Russians pull out of costly war in Afghanistan
----------------------
1989
Berlin Wall demolished
----------------------
1989
European Monetary System (EMS) established - move towards single
currency
----------------------
1989
Exxon Valdez oil-spill in Alaska
-----------------------
1990
Margaret Thatcher resigns - John Major takes over as British PM
----------------------
1990
Alberto Fujimori elected President in Peru
----------------------
1990
East and West Germany unite as Federal Republic of Germany
----------------------
1990
Civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina starts
----------------------
1990
Neslon Mandela released - end of apartheid in South Africa
----------------------
1990
Hubble Space Telescope launched
----------------------
1990
Iraq invades Kuwait
---------------------
1991
Persian Gulf War starts
----------------------
1991
USSR breaks up into constituent countries - end of Soviet era
----------------------
1991
Ethiopian Civil War ends - Eritrea becomes independent
----------------------
1991
Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi killed by Tamil suicide bomber
----------------------
1993
Salvatore Riina, reputed Mafia leader, arrested
----------------------
1993
European Union (EU) formed by former EEC members
----------------------
1994
"Chunnel", rail tunnel between England and France, inaugurated
----------------------
1994
IRA announce unconditional cease-fire - lasts until 1996
----------------------
1994
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) established
----------------------
1994
Nelson Mandela becomes first black President of South Africa
----------------------
1994
Sovereignty of Quebec narrowly defeated in referendum
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