TIMELINE OF EVENTS
| 1975 | U.S. and USSR sign Helsinki accords |
| 1978 | Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt |
| 1979 | U.S. Embassy staff in Tehran taken hostage |
| U.S. and USSR sign SALT II; Congress does not ratify | |
| Soviet Union invades Afghanistan | |
| 1980 | Solidarity founded in Poland |
| 1982 | Boland Amendment passed |
| 750,000 attend nuclear freeze rally in New York City’s Central Park | |
| 1983 | Suicide bomb attack in Lebanon kills 241 U.S. soldiers |
| U.S. invasion of Grenada | |
| 1985 | Reagan administration sells arms to Iran for release of hostages and to fund Nicaraguan Contras |
| Mikhail Gorbachev assumes leadership of the Soviet Union | |
| 1987 | Senate hearings on Iran-Contra affair |
| U.S. and Soviet Union sign Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty | |
| 1989 | Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown in China |
| Fall of the Berlin Wall | |
| 1990–1991 | Soviet Union dismantled |
| 1991 | U.S. pushes Iraq out of Kuwait |
| 1993 | European Union (EU) formed |
| 1994 | North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect |