A Level History key facts

AS: France, 1774-1814

The causes and immediate outcomes of the 1789 Revolution

• Three estates: clergy (First), nobility (Second), everyone else (Third). The taille was a direct tax paid mainly by the Third Estate.
• 1781: Necker's Compte rendu hid the true state of royal finances. 1787: the Assembly of Notables rejected Calonne's land tax.
• 5 May 1789: Estates-General met. 17 June: Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly. 20 June: Tennis Court Oath.
• 11 July 1789: Necker dismissed. 14 July: storming of the Bastille.
• August Decrees (4 August 1789): abolished feudal dues, the tithe and noble privileges.
• 26 August 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (liberty, equality before the law, sovereignty of the nation).
• 5 to 6 October 1789: March of the Women brought the royal family from Versailles to Paris.

Why French governments were unstable, 1790-1795

• 1790: Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The oath of loyalty divided priests and turned many Catholics against the Revolution.
• June 1791: flight to Varennes. July 1791: Feuillants formed, moderates who wanted to keep a constitutional monarchy.
• 20 April 1792: war declared on Austria, pushed by the Girondins. July 1792: Brunswick Manifesto threatened Paris.
• 10 August 1792: attack on the Tuileries. September 1792: September Massacres and the Republic declared. 21 January 1793: Louis XVI executed.
• 1793: rising in the Vendée against conscription. The Committee of Public Safety directed the Terror.
• August 1793: levée en masse (mass conscription). September 1793: General Maximum fixed prices and wages.
• Assignats: paper money backed by Church land, printed in excess, so it lost value. July 1794 (Thermidor): Robespierre fell.

Why Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory in 1799

• Constitution of Year III (1795): five Directors, a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients.
• October 1795 (Vendémiaire): Bonaparte's guns crushed a royalist rising in Paris caused by the Two-Thirds Decree.
• 1796: Babeuf's Conspiracy of the Equals, a plot from the far left, was uncovered.
• September 1797: coup of Fructidor. The army helped the Directors remove elected royalists.
• 1797: 'bankruptcy of the two-thirds'. The state cancelled two-thirds of its debt.
• October 1797: Treaty of Campo Formio ended Bonaparte's Italian campaign with victory over Austria.
• 9 to 10 November 1799 (18 to 19 Brumaire): the coup of Brumaire. Sieyès planned it; Lucien Bonaparte saved it at Saint-Cloud.

Napoleon's domestic aims and achievements, 1799-1814

• 1800: Bank of France founded. 1800: prefects appointed by Napoleon to run each department.
• Concordat (1801): peace with the Pope. Catholicism recognised as the religion of the majority of the French; the state chose and paid bishops; Church lands stayed with their buyers.
• 1802: Consul for Life after a plebiscite. 1802: Legion of Honour to reward loyal service. 1802: lycées (state secondary schools for boys).
• Civil Code (1804): equality before the law, property rights, no feudal privileges; it also gave fathers and husbands strong authority.
• 1804: a royalist plot was used to justify hereditary rule. Napoleon was crowned Emperor at Notre-Dame on 2 December 1804.
• Control: censorship of newspapers, Fouché's Ministry of Police, the Imperial Catechism (1806) teaching obedience to the Emperor.
• Plebiscites in 1800, 1802 and 1804 gave his rule the appearance of popular consent.

AS: The Industrial Revolution in Britain, 1750-1850 (exams to Nov 2026)

The causes of the Industrial Revolution

• Enclosure: open fields and commons turned into compact farms. More efficient farming; many small farmers and cottagers became wage labourers.
• Norfolk four-course rotation: wheat, turnips, barley, clover. No fallow year, and fodder for more animals.
• Robert Bakewell: selective breeding of sheep and cattle.
• Newcomen's atmospheric engine (1712): pumped water out of mines.
• Kay's flying shuttle (1733) speeded up weaving. Hargreaves' spinning jenny (1760s) and Arkwright's water frame (patented 1769) speeded up spinning.
• Bridgewater Canal (1761): carried coal to Manchester and cut its price sharply; it started a wave of canal building.
• Turnpike trusts: bodies allowed by Parliament to charge tolls and use the money to improve a stretch of road.

The rapid growth of industrialisation after 1780

• Cromford Mill (1771): Arkwright's water-powered cotton mill, the pattern for the factory system.
• Watt's rotary motion (early 1780s): steam could turn machinery, not just pump water.
• Cartwright's power loom (1785): began the mechanisation of weaving.
• Abraham Darby (1709): smelted iron with coke instead of charcoal. Henry Cort (1783 to 1784): puddling and rolling made good wrought iron in large amounts.
• 1830: Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened. 1838: steamships crossed the Atlantic under steam power.
• Free trade: Huskisson cut import duties in the 1820s; Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846.
• Britain had coal and iron ore close together and close to the sea and navigable rivers.

Urbanisation and its consequences

• Factory Act 1833: no children under 9 in textile mills, limited hours for those aged 9 to 18, and paid inspectors to enforce the law.
• Poor Law Amendment Act 1834: relief in the workhouse; 'less eligibility' meant conditions inside were worse than those of the poorest labourer outside.
• Chadwick's Report (1842): linked disease to dirt, bad drainage and poor water; argued that prevention would cost less than poverty caused by illness.
• Mines Act 1842: no women or girls, and no boys under 10, to work underground.
• Ten Hours Act 1847: women and young people under 18 limited to ten hours a day in textile mills.
• Public Health Act 1848: set up a General Board of Health, but it was mostly permissive, so many towns did nothing.
• Truck system: wages paid in goods or tokens for the employer's shop instead of money.

Popular protest and political change

• Luddites (1811 to 1816): skilled textile workers who broke machines in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire.
• Peterloo (August 1819): cavalry charged a peaceful reform meeting in Manchester. The Six Acts (1819) then restricted meetings and the radical press.
• Combination Acts repealed in 1824: trade unions became legal.
• Captain Swing riots (1830): farm labourers in southern and eastern England broke threshing machines and burned ricks.
• Reform Act 1832: removed many rotten boroughs, gave seats to industrial towns, and gave the vote to middle-class men.
• Tolpuddle Martyrs (1834): six Dorset labourers transported for taking an illegal oath when forming a union.
• People's Charter (1838), six points: votes for all men, secret ballot, no property qualification for MPs, payment of MPs, equal constituencies, annual parliaments. Petitions of 1839, 1842 and 1848 were rejected. Rochdale Pioneers (1844): cooperative shop sharing profits with members.

AS: Liberalism and nationalism in Germany, 1815-1871

The causes of the Revolutions of 1848-49

• German Confederation (1815): 39 states, with a Diet at Frankfurt chaired by Austria. It was a union of rulers, not of the people.
• Carlsbad Decrees (1819): censorship of the press, control of universities, ban on student societies (Burschenschaften).
• Hambach Festival (1832): a large liberal and nationalist gathering, followed by the Six Articles, which tightened repression.
• Zollverein (1834): customs union led by Prussia; removed internal tariffs; Austria stayed outside.
• Rhine crisis (1840): a French threat to the Rhine produced a wave of popular German national feeling.
• Silesian weavers' revolt (1844): a protest against falling pay and poverty. 1847: Frederick William IV called the United Diet because he needed money.
• February 1848: the fall of Louis Philippe in Paris sparked risings in the German states.

The consequences of the 1848-49 Revolutions

• March 1848: Metternich resigned and fled Vienna. In Berlin the king withdrew troops and promised reform.
• Frankfurt Parliament (opened May 1848): dominated by middle-class professionals such as lawyers, professors and officials.
• Schleswig-Holstein (1848): the Parliament had to rely on the Prussian army and could not stop Prussia making peace. This showed it had no real power.
• Kleindeutsch: a 'small Germany' without Austria, led by Prussia. Grossdeutsch: a 'greater Germany' including Austria's German lands.
• April 1849: Frederick William IV refused the imperial crown because it came from an elected parliament, not from the princes.
• Olmütz (November 1850): Prussia gave up its Erfurt Union and accepted the revival of the Confederation under Austria. Schwarzenberg led Austrian policy.
• Prussian constitution of 1850: three-class franchise, with votes weighted by taxes paid. 1850s: Prussian coal, iron and railways grew quickly, and Austria stayed out of the Zollverein.

Bismarck's intentions for Prussia and Germany, 1862-1866

• September 1862: Bismarck appointed during the conflict over the army budget. 'Iron and blood' speech: the great questions would be decided by force, not by speeches and majority votes.
• 1862 to 1866: Bismarck ruled without a legal budget. The Indemnity Bill (1866) had the Landtag approve this afterwards and split the liberals.
• 1864: Prussia and Austria together defeated Denmark, after Denmark tried to bind Schleswig more closely to itself.
• Convention of Gastein (1865): Prussia administered Schleswig, Austria administered Holstein.
• Before 1866: alliance with Italy, French neutrality sought from Napoleon III, Russian goodwill since 1863.
• 3 July 1866: Prussian victory at Königgrätz (Sadowa).
• Treaty of Prague (1866): German Confederation dissolved, Austria excluded from German affairs, Austria lost no land to Prussia. North German Confederation (1867): states north of the River Main, the King of Prussia as president, Bismarck as chancellor, a Reichstag elected by all adult men.

How and why German unification was achieved by 1871

• Luxembourg crisis, 1867: Napoleon III failed to buy Luxembourg; it became neutral and the Prussian garrison left.
• Hohenzollern candidature, 1870: Prince Leopold, a relative of the King of Prussia, was offered the Spanish throne.
• Ems Telegram, 13 July 1870: edited by Bismarck; France declared war on 19 July 1870.
• Sedan, 1 to 2 September 1870: a French army surrendered and Napoleon III was captured.
• German Empire proclaimed on 18 January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles; Wilhelm I became Kaiser.
• Treaty of Frankfurt, May 1871: France gave up Alsace and part of Lorraine and paid 5 billion francs.
• 1871 constitution: the Kaiser appointed the Chancellor; the Reichstag was elected by all adult men.

AS: The Russian Revolution, 1894-1921

The causes and outcomes of the 1905 Revolution up to 1914

• 1903: the Social Democrats split into Bolsheviks (Lenin, a small party of full-time revolutionaries) and Mensheviks (a wider membership).
• Bloody Sunday, 9 January 1905 (Old Style): troops fired on a peaceful march led by Father Gapon to the Winter Palace.
• October Manifesto, 1905: promised civil rights and an elected Duma; liberals were satisfied, revolutionaries were not.
• Fundamental Laws, April 1906: the Tsar kept supreme autocratic power, a veto over laws and control of ministers.
• Stolypin (Prime Minister 1906 to 1911): field courts martial and hangings, called 'Stolypin's necktie'; land reform let peasants leave the commune to own farms.
• June 1907 electoral law: more votes for landowners, so the Third Duma was conservative.
• Lena goldfields, 1912: troops shot striking miners, which set off a new wave of strikes.

The February Revolution of 1917

• Tannenberg, August 1914: a heavy Russian defeat in East Prussia in the first weeks of the war.
• 1915: Nicholas II went to army headquarters as commander-in-chief; ministers were changed again and again in his absence.
• December 1916: Rasputin was murdered by a group of nobles led by Prince Yusupov.
• 23 February 1917 (Old Style): International Women's Day marches over bread shortages joined striking workers.
• The Petrograd garrison mutinied on 27 February; Nicholas abdicated on 2 March.
• Grand Duke Michael refused the throne, ending Romanov rule.
• Provisional Government under Prince Lvov: to rule only until an elected Constituent Assembly met. Order No. 1 gave the Petrograd Soviet control over the soldiers.

How and why the Bolsheviks gained power in October 1917

• April 1917: Lenin crossed Germany in a sealed train, with German help, and reached Petrograd.
• July Days: armed demonstrations by soldiers, sailors and workers in Petrograd failed; Lenin fled to Finland and Bolshevik leaders were arrested.
• Kornilov affair, August 1917: Kerensky armed the Bolshevik Red Guards to defend Petrograd, and they kept the weapons.
• September 1917: Bolshevik majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets; Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.
• The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet controlled the garrison and planned the seizure of bridges, stations and the telegraph.
• 25 October 1917 (Old Style): the Bolsheviks took power; the Winter Palace fell that night.
• Mensheviks and Right SRs walked out of the Second Congress of Soviets, leaving the Bolsheviks in control.

Bolshevik consolidation of power, 1917-1921

• Decree on Land, October 1917: private estates were abolished and the land passed to the peasants.
• Cheka, December 1917: political police under Dzerzhinsky to fight 'counter-revolution'.
• Constituent Assembly: the SRs won most seats; the Bolsheviks closed it in January 1918.
• Brest-Litovsk, March 1918: Russia lost Finland, Poland, the Baltic provinces and Ukraine; the Left SRs left the government.
• War Communism: grain requisitioning, state control of industry, a ban on private trade.
• Tambov peasant rising (1920 to 1921) and Kronstadt sailors' rising (March 1921): demands included freely elected soviets and an end to requisitioning.
• Tenth Party Congress, March 1921: NEP replaced requisitioning with a tax in kind and allowed private trade; factions inside the party were banned.

A Level: The origins and development of the Cold War, 1941-1950

Tensions in the wartime alliance and peace-making, 1941-1945

• Atlantic Charter, August 1941: Roosevelt and Churchill promised self-determination and no territorial gains.
• Tehran, November 1943: a second front in France in 1944; Stalin would join the war against Japan after Germany's defeat.
• Percentages Agreement, October 1944: Churchill and Stalin informally shared out influence in the Balkans.
• Warsaw Uprising, 1944: the Red Army halted outside the city while the Germans crushed the Polish Home Army.
• Yalta, February 1945: Germany and Berlin in four zones; free elections in liberated Europe; the United Nations; Stalin to fight Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.
• Potsdam, July to August 1945: Truman and then Attlee replaced Roosevelt and Churchill; each power took reparations from its own zone; Poland's western border was set provisionally on the Oder-Neisse line.
• Atomic bombs on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945) ended the war but deepened Stalin's suspicion.

Increasing tensions in a divided Europe, 1945-1947

• Long Telegram, February 1946: Kennan argued that the USSR was insecure and expansionist and would give way only to firm resistance.
• Iron Curtain speech, March 1946: Churchill at Fulton, Missouri, said Europe was divided from Stettin to Trieste.
• Novikov Telegram, September 1946: the Soviet ambassador claimed the USA aimed at world domination.
• Byrnes at Stuttgart, September 1946: US troops would stay in Germany and German recovery would be supported.
• Bizonia, January 1947: the American and British zones were joined into one economic unit.
• Iran, 1946: Soviet troops stayed in the north past the agreed date and left only under pressure. Turkey: the USSR demanded bases on the Straits.
• February 1947: Britain said it could no longer pay to support Greece and Turkey; Polish elections in January 1947 were rigged.

The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Blockade

• Truman Doctrine, March 1947: $400 million for Greece and Turkey and a pledge to support free peoples resisting takeover.
• 'Containment' reached the public through Kennan's 'X' article in Foreign Affairs, July 1947.
• Marshall Plan, announced June 1947: about $13 billion to 16 European countries from 1948.
• Cominform, September 1947: co-ordinated communist parties under Moscow. Comecon, January 1949: economic co-operation in the Soviet bloc.
• Berlin Blockade: began in June 1948 after the Deutschmark was introduced; lifted in May 1949.
• NATO, April 1949: a military alliance in which an attack on one member is an attack on all.
• 1949: Federal Republic of Germany (West) in May; German Democratic Republic (East) in October.

Historians' approaches to the origins of the Cold War

• Traditional (orthodox): Stalin's expansionism caused the Cold War; the USA responded defensively. Examples: Herbert Feis, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
• Context of the Traditional view: the tense 1950s, with strong anti-communism in the USA and no Soviet sources.
• Revisionist: US pursuit of open markets (the 'Open Door') drove the conflict. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959).
• Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy (1965): the bomb was used partly to put pressure on the USSR.
• Context of Revisionism: the Vietnam War made many Americans question their country's foreign policy.
• Post-Revisionist: shared responsibility and mutual misunderstanding. John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War (1972).
• 'New' Cold War history: used archives opened after 1991; Gaddis, We Now Know (1997), gave more weight to Stalin's role. Soviet-era historians blamed American imperialism.

A Level: The globalisation of the Cold War, 1950-1975 (exams to Nov 2026)

The death of Stalin and peaceful coexistence

• Stalin died in March 1953; the Korean armistice followed in July 1953.
• New Look (1953): fewer costly conventional forces, more nuclear weapons, alliances and secret CIA action.
• John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State: 'massive retaliation' and 'brinkmanship'.
• May 1955: West Germany joined NATO; the Warsaw Pact was formed days later. The Austrian State Treaty made Austria neutral and free of foreign troops.
• Geneva Summit, July 1955: Eisenhower's 'Open Skies' plan for mutual air inspection was rejected by the USSR.
• Secret Speech, February 1956: Khrushchev attacked Stalin's crimes and personality cult.
• U-2 incident, May 1960: an American spy plane flown by Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR, and the Paris Summit collapsed.

Crises in Europe: Hungary, Berlin and the Prague Spring

• Hungary, 1956: Imre Nagy announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and become neutral; Soviet forces attacked on 4 November and Kádár was installed.
• The West did not act: the risk of nuclear war was too great and Britain and France were busy with the Suez crisis.
• Hungary showed that American talk of 'rolling back' communism was not backed by action.
• November 1958: Khrushchev demanded that Western forces leave West Berlin within six months and that it become a 'free city'.
• Berlin Wall: building began on 13 August 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to the West.
• Prague Spring, 1968: Dubček's 'socialism with a human face' meant less censorship and more freedom, while staying communist and in the Warsaw Pact.
• August 1968: Warsaw Pact forces invaded; Romania refused to take part. Brezhnev Doctrine: the USSR could intervene wherever socialism was threatened in a bloc country.

The Cold War in Asia: Korea and Vietnam

• 25 June 1950: North Korea, led by Kim Il Sung, invaded South Korea across the 38th parallel.
• The UN Security Council backed action because the USSR was boycotting it and could not use its veto.
• September 1950: MacArthur's landing at Inchon; late 1950: China intervened as UN forces neared the Yalu River.
• July 1953: armistice at Panmunjom, with Korea divided close to the 38th parallel.
• 1954: French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; Geneva Accords divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
• August 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; January 1968: Tet Offensive; January 1973: Paris Peace Accords.
• April 1975: Saigon fell and all of Vietnam came under communist rule.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

• January 1959: Castro overthrew Batista. 1960 to 1961: US trade embargo and break in diplomatic relations.
• April 1961: Bay of Pigs, a CIA-backed landing by Cuban exiles, defeated within days.
• 14 October 1962: U-2 photographs showed missile sites; 22 October: Kennedy announced the quarantine on television.
• 28 October 1962: Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles.
• Public terms: Soviet missiles out, US pledge not to invade Cuba. Secret term: US Jupiter missiles to leave Turkey later.
• June 1963: hotline between Washington and Moscow. August 1963: Partial Test Ban Treaty.

A Level: The nuclear arms race, 1945-1991 (exams to Nov 2026)

The development of the nuclear arms race

• Atomic bomb: USA July 1945, USSR August 1949. Hydrogen bomb: USA November 1952, USSR 1953.
• 1957: the USSR tested the first ICBM and launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in October.
• The 'missile gap' was a feared Soviet lead in missiles. In fact the USA was ahead.
• 1960: Polaris, the first US submarine-launched ballistic missile. From 1970: MIRVs.
• Massive retaliation (Eisenhower and Dulles, 1954): answer any attack with overwhelming nuclear force.
• Flexible response (Kennedy): a range of options from conventional forces to nuclear weapons.
• MAD: each side can destroy the other even after being attacked first (a secure second strike).

The impact of the arms race on US-Soviet relations

• Deterrence: neither side attacks because the other can still retaliate with unacceptable damage.
• Brinkmanship: pushing a crisis to the edge of war to make the other side back down.
• From 1977: Soviet SS-20 intermediate-range missiles aimed at Western Europe.
• December 1979: NATO 'dual-track' decision, to deploy new missiles while offering arms talks.
• From late 1983: US Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles deployed in Western Europe.
• March 1983: Reagan announced SDI ('Star Wars'), a planned defence against incoming missiles.
• October 1986: the Reykjavik summit ended without agreement because Reagan would not limit SDI.

Attempts to control nuclear weapons

• 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (USA, USSR, Britain): no tests in the atmosphere, in outer space or underwater. Underground tests were still allowed.
• 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty: aimed to stop nuclear weapons spreading to further states.
• May 1972 SALT I (Nixon and Brezhnev, Moscow): Interim Agreement froze ICBM and SLBM launchers for five years.
• 1972 ABM Treaty: each side limited to two anti-ballistic missile sites.
• June 1979 SALT II (Carter and Brezhnev, Vienna): never ratified; Carter withdrew it from the Senate after the invasion of Afghanistan.
• December 1987 INF Treaty (Reagan and Gorbachev, Washington): removed all ground-launched missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km.
• July 1991 START I (Bush and Gorbachev): the first real cuts in strategic weapons.

A Level: The end of the Cold War, 1975-1991 (exams to Nov 2026)

Détente and the outbreak of the Second Cold War

• August 1975 Helsinki Final Act: the West accepted the post-war borders in Europe; the East promised to respect human rights.
• Dissident groups such as Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia later used the human rights promises against their governments.
• December 1979: Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to support its communist government.
• US response: SALT II withdrawn from the Senate, grain embargo, boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
• January 1980 Carter Doctrine: the USA would use force to defend the Persian Gulf.
• March 1983: Reagan called the USSR an 'evil empire' and announced SDI.
• September 1983: a Soviet fighter shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007. 1984: Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics.

Problems facing the USSR

• Leaders: Brezhnev 1964 to 1982, Andropov 1982 to 1984, Chernenko 1984 to 1985, Gorbachev from March 1985.
• The USSR depended on oil and gas exports for hard currency, so the fall in oil prices in the mid-1980s hit hard.
• Afghanistan 1979 to 1989: about 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed by the official Soviet count; the mujahideen were armed by the USA through Pakistan.
• February 1989: the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan.
• August 1980: Solidarity, an independent trade union led by Lech Wałęsa, formed in Gdańsk.
• December 1981: General Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland and arrested Solidarity's leaders; the union was banned.
• April 1986: the Chernobyl disaster and its early cover-up damaged trust in the system.

The impact of Reagan and Gorbachev

• Summits in order: Geneva (November 1985), Reykjavik (October 1986), Washington (December 1987), Moscow (1988).
• Geneva: a personal relationship and a joint statement that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
• Reykjavik: deep cuts were discussed but talks broke down over SDI. Washington: the INF Treaty was signed.
• April 1988: Geneva Accords on Afghanistan; withdrawal completed in February 1989.
• December 1988: Gorbachev's UN speech announced a unilateral cut of 500,000 troops and freedom of choice for all nations.
• 'Sinatra Doctrine' (1989): Eastern European states could go their own way. It replaced the Brezhnev Doctrine.

The collapse of the Soviet system, 1989-1991

• June 1989: Solidarity won almost every seat it could contest in Poland's partly free elections.
• May 1989: Hungary began to remove its border fence with Austria. On 11 September 1989 it let East Germans cross to the West.
• November 1989: 'Velvet Revolution' in Czechoslovakia. December 1989: violent revolution in Romania; Ceaușescu was executed.
• December 1989: at the Malta summit Bush and Gorbachev signalled that the Cold War was ending.
• 3 October 1990: German reunification, after the Two Plus Four Treaty.
• 1991: the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. August 1991: the coup failed after resistance led by Boris Yeltsin.
• December 1991: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus formed the CIS; Gorbachev resigned on 25 December.