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  1. On This Day September 1 1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Shot Down

    On This Day September 1 1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Shot Down

    On this day September 1 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter after it unintentionally entered Soviet airspace. The civilian Boeing 747 was en route from New York to Seoul, with a stop in Anchorage, when it deviated from its planned course and crossed into...
  2. On This Day July 25 1984 – Soviet Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya Became the First Woman to Walk in Space

    On This Day July 25 1984 – Soviet Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya Became the First Woman to Walk in Space

    On this day July 25 1984, Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya made history as the first woman to perform a spacewalk. While aboard the Salyut 7 space station, she spent over three hours outside the spacecraft conducting welding experiments in orbit. Savitskaya had already become the second...
    • Pete
    • News story
    • 1980s history 1984 events cold war era salyut 7 soviet union space exploration spacewalks svetlana savitskaya women in space
    • Category: On This Day in 80s News
  3. On This Day: July 7, 1983 - Samantha Smith Was Invited to the Soviet Union by Yuri Andropov

    On This Day: July 7, 1983 - Samantha Smith Was Invited to the Soviet Union by Yuri Andropov

    On this day July 7, 1983, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith was formally invited to visit the Soviet Union by Secretary General Yuri Andropov. The invitation came in response to a heartfelt letter she had written expressing her fears of nuclear war and asking why the United States and the...
    • Pete
    • News story
    • 1983 events 80s history cold war nuclear fear peace diplomacy samantha smith soviet union
    • Category: On This Day in 80s News
  4. On This Day: June 4, 1988 - Deadly Train Explosion Strikes Arzamas in the Soviet Union

    On This Day: June 4, 1988 - Deadly Train Explosion Strikes Arzamas in the Soviet Union

    On this day June 4, 1988, a catastrophic train explosion rocked the city of Arzamas in Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 people and injuring over 1,500. The blast occurred when three cars on the freight train, each carrying hexagen (RDX), a powerful military explosive, detonated while passing...
  5. On This Day: June 1, 1988 - INF Treaty Signed by Reagan and Gorbachev Officially Takes Effect

    On This Day: June 1, 1988 - INF Treaty Signed by Reagan and Gorbachev Officially Takes Effect

    On this day June 1, 1988, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union officially went into effect. Originally signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, the treaty was a landmark agreement in...
  6. On This Day: May 29, 1988 - President Ronald Reagan Arrives in Moscow

    On This Day: May 29, 1988 - President Ronald Reagan Arrives in Moscow

    On this day May 29, 1988, President Ronald Reagan arrived in Moscow for his first official visit to the Soviet Union. The trip marked a major moment in the final years of the Cold War, as Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to continue diplomatic efforts that had begun to ease...
    • Pete
    • News story
    • 1988 80s history mikhail gorbachev president ronald reagan soviet union
    • Category: On This Day in 80s News
  7. On This Day: May 8, 1984 - USSR Announces Boycott of 1984 Summer Olympics

    On This Day: May 8, 1984 - USSR Announces Boycott of 1984 Summer Olympics

    On this day May 8, 1984, the Soviet Union announced it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, citing security concerns and claiming the United States was using the event for political purposes. In reality, the move was widely seen as retaliation for the US-led boycott of the 1980...
  8. On This Day: May 2, 1986 - The City of Chernobyl Is Evacuated

    On This Day: May 2, 1986 - The City of Chernobyl Is Evacuated

    On May 2, 1986, six days after the explosion at Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the city of Chernobyl was officially evacuated. While the nearby town of Pripyat had been evacuated on April 27, the full evacuation of surrounding areas including the city of Chernobyl itself took...
  9. On This Day: April 28, 1986 - Soviet Authorities Acknowledge the Chernobyl Disaster

    On This Day: April 28, 1986 - Soviet Authorities Acknowledge the Chernobyl Disaster

    On April 28, 1986, Soviet authorities were forced to publicly acknowledge the Chernobyl disaster after dangerously high levels of radiation were detected at a nuclear power plant in Sweden. The Soviet Union had initially attempted to keep the incident quiet, but the spread of radioactive...
  10. On This Day: March 26 1989 The Soviet Union Held Its First Partially Free Elections

    On This Day: March 26 1989 The Soviet Union Held Its First Partially Free Elections

    On this day March 26 1989 the Soviet Union conducted its first partially free nationwide elections for the Congress of People's Deputies. This historic event marked a significant shift in Soviet politics allowing for a degree of electoral competition previously unseen in the country's history...
  11. On This Day: March 21 1980 President Jimmy Carter Announced the US Would Boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics

    On This Day: March 21 1980 President Jimmy Carter Announced the US Would Boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics

    On this day March 21 1980 President Jimmy Carter officially announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The decision was made in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan which began in December 1979. The boycott was part of a broader effort to...
  12. On This Day: March 11 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev Became the Leader of the Soviet Union

    On This Day: March 11 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev Became the Leader of the Soviet Union

    On this day March 11 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union making him the country's de facto leader. Gorbachev would go on to introduce major reforms including glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) which aimed to modernize...
  13. On This Day: March 8 1980 The Tbilisi Rock Festival Began

    On This Day: March 8 1980 The Tbilisi Rock Festival Began

    On this day March 8 1980 the Tbilisi Rock Festival became the first state-sanctioned rock music festival in the Soviet Union. Held in Tbilisi Georgia the festival was a groundbreaking moment for rock music behind the Iron Curtain where Western-influenced genres were often censored or...
  14. On This Day: February 20, 1986 - The Soviet Union Launched the Mir Spacecraft

    On This Day: February 20, 1986 - The Soviet Union Launched the Mir Spacecraft

    On February 20, 1986, the Soviet Union launched Mir, the world’s first long-term modular space station. Designed as a scientific and research outpost in low Earth orbit, Mir remained in space for an incredible 15 years, with continuous human occupation for 10 of those years. Mir became a major...
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