1978-1988 Cold War Dominating Factors

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan

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1978 Vietnam and the Soviet Union sign a 25 year peace treaty.

1979 Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

1980 Fidel Castro allowed would be Cuban refugees to enter the ground of Peruvian Embassy in Havana, resulting in the transfer of almost 120,000 cuban to South Florida. A lasting stigma remains attached to the marielitos because Castro expelled criminals and the mentally ill, as well as genuine political refugees.

1981 Ronald Reagan becomes the 40th president of the United States of America.

1982 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev dies.

1983 President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which involves new state-of-the-art technology that has the capabilities of shooting down incoming Soviet missiles.

1983 Cold War tensions intensified when United States troops invaded the island nation of Grenada to overthrow its Marxist government.

1983 The Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 on September 1 because it strayed into Soviet airspace. The incident killed all 269 people on the flight, including a U.S. Congressman. This increased the negative perception of the Soviet Union with the American people.

1983 From December 8th to December 10th during the summit meeting in Washington DC Co-president Reagan and premier Gorbachev signed the intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty agreeing to eliminate intermediate range weapons from their nuclear arsenals....

1984 Ronald Reagan won the presidential election and began his second term as President of the United States of America. While in office Reagan continued to grow military strength.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was the reformer who wanted to improve his country’s relations with the United States and who would address the Soviet Union’s human rights problems. This was a dominant factor to gain closer ties with the United States.

1989 Soviet Union withdraws troops from Afghanistan.

Citations:

Chris Trueman BA (Hons), MA, (n.d.) Retrieved October 1, 1009, from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cold%20war%20chronology.htm

James Ciment. edited by.

Postwar America, An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural and Economic History. 2007. Volume 2. Fidel Castro, pg 775-76 paragraph 8.

James Ciment, edited by.

Postwar America, An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural and Economic History Volume 1. Gorbachev; pg 42, paragraph 4

Holloran Peter C.1947-

Social History of the United States: The 1980s/Peter C. Holloran and Andrew Hunt; pg 50-53

American Decades: Primary sources 1970-1979, Cynthia Rose, project editor

Government and Politics: “Vietnamization” pg. 213

American Decades: Primary sources 1980:1989 Editor Thompson Gale

Government and Politics; Ronald Reagan

Author unknown

http://www.library.thinkquest.org/10826/timeline.htm