Baltic Way
A 675-km human chain links three nations seeking independence
On 23 August 1989, the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about two million people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands in a 675 km human chain. The three republics declared independence in 1990–1991.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 9 years earlier
- 2008 Global financial crisis — 19 years later
Europe
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — same year
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — same year
- 1990 German reunification — 1 year later
- 1991–2001 Yugoslav Wars — 2 years later
- 1992 Maastricht Treaty — 3 years later
Middle East
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 10 years earlier
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 9 years earlier
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 1 year later
Africa
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 22 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 22 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 15 years earlier
- 1983–1985 The Ethiopian famine — 6 years earlier
- 1994 End of apartheid in South Africa — 5 years later
Asia
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 14 years earlier
- 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — same year
- 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo — 2 years later
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami — 15 years later
- 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — 22 years later
Americas
- 1969 Moon landing — 20 years earlier
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 19 years earlier
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 6 years earlier
- 1990 Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope — 1 year later
- 2001 September 11 attacks — 12 years later
Oceania
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 3 years later
Alive at the time
- Nelson Mandela (aged 71)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 59)
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) (aged 88)
- Mother Teresa (aged 79)
- Ronald Reagan (aged 78)
- Richard Nixon (aged 76)
- Edmund Hillary (aged 70)
- Jimmy Carter (aged 65)
- Fidel Castro (aged 63)
- Elizabeth II (aged 63)