The Kola Superdeep Borehole
The deepest hole on Earth: 12,262 metres down
Drilling of borehole SG-3 began on 24 May 1970, and in 1989 it reached 12,262 m, still the deepest hole ever drilled. Heat stopped further progress: about 12 km down it was an unexpected 180 °C, and the mud came up 'boiling' with hydrogen.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 23 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 22 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 21 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 10 years later
- 1981 AIDS first described — 11 years later
Europe
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 17 years earlier
- 1961 Berlin Wall built — 9 years earlier
- 1968 May 1968 in France — 2 years earlier
- 1989 Invention of the World Wide Web — 19 years later
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall — 19 years later
Middle East
- 1953 Iranian coup against Mosaddegh — 17 years earlier
- 1978 Camp David Accords — 8 years later
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 9 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 10 years later
- 1990–1991 Gulf War — 20 years later
Africa
- 1960 Year of Africa — 10 years earlier
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 7 years earlier
- 1967 First human heart transplant — 3 years earlier
- 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War and Biafra — 3 years earlier
- 1974 Lucy is discovered — 4 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 25 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 17 years earlier
- 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution in China — 4 years earlier
- 1970 Bhola cyclone — same year
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 5 years later
Americas
- 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — 8 years earlier
- 1969 Moon landing — 1 year earlier
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — same year
- 1973 Chilean coup d'état — 3 years later
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 13 years later
Oceania
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 16 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 11 years earlier
- 1992 The Mabo decision — 22 years later
Alive at the time
- Pablo Picasso (aged 89)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 81)
- Mao Zedong (aged 77)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 52)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 40)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 86)
- Haile Selassie (aged 78)
- Nikita Khrushchev (aged 76)
- Golda Meir (aged 72)
- Jorge Luis Borges (aged 71)