Revolutions of 1989
Communist regimes fall one after another, mostly peacefully
In 1989 communist regimes fell in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (the Velvet Revolution) and Romania. Except in Romania, the changes were largely peaceful and led to multiparty elections.
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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)