Stalin rises to power
Government
1924
Stalin begins trials & purges with convictions based on confessions under pressure
Government
1936
Stalin executes 8 Red Army personnel & later kills or sends to labor camps 30,000
Government
1937
Russian army defeats Japanese in undeclared border war at Khalkhin Gol
War
1939
Trotsky is assassinated near Mexico City by one of Stalin's agents
Government
1940
Potsdam Conference
Peace
1945
USSR explodes first atomic weapon
War
1949
Millions of Russians mourn Stalin's death--his infallibility myth unveiled later
Government
1953
Khrushchev denounces Stalin as guilty of crimes against Russians
Government
1956
Nikita Khrushchev declares to Western ambassadors, "We will bury you."
Government
1956
Soviet-Chinese alliance dissolves
Government
1960
Valentina Tereshkova is the first female astronaut
Transportation
1963
In March 1969, fighting occurs on Sino-Soviet border
War
1969
Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes in English "The Gulag Archipelago"
Arts
1974
Andrei Sakharov awarded Nobel Peace Prize
Peace
1975
Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to assist a pro-Soviet party opposed by Muslims
War
1979
Mikhail Gorbachev takes power and starts reforms
Government
1985
Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes, releasing radioactive particles into atmosphere
Earth
1986
Gorbachev, introducing perestroika & glasnost, battles for Communist Party
Government
1987
Citizens of Baltic Republics join hands in chain for freedom to end Soviet rule
Peace
1989
Berlin Wall falls--after reforms of Gorbachev, East Germany collapses
Government
1989
Gorbachev agrees to Conventional Forces Treaty effectively ending the Cold War
Peace
1990