talwabatal - houdini 1963

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

(Spanish: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];[3] 14 June 1928[4] – 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.[5]

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.[6][7] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology.[6] Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.[8] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.[9]

After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara played key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals,[10] instituting agrarian land reform as Minister of Industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both President of the National Bank and instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion,[11] and bringing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba, which preceded the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.[12] Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal guerrilla warfare manual, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedies being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.[13][14] Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment continental revolutions across both Africa and South America,[15] first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.[16]

Guevara remains a controversial historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a "new man" driven by moral rather than material incentives,[17] Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various left-wing movements. In contrast, his critics on the political right accuse him of promoting authoritarianism and endorsing violence against his political opponents. Despite disagreements on his legacy, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,[18] while an Alberto Korda photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico, was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as "the most famous photograph in the world".[19]

1969

Apollo 11

(July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia.

Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.

After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used Eagle's ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth.[9] They returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space.

Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."[a][15] Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."[16]

Apollo 11 Patch

President John F. Kennedy speaking at Rice University on September 12, 1962

Map of Moon showing prospective sites for Apollo 11. Site 2 was chosen.

CAPCOM Charles Duke (left), with backup crewmen Jim Lovell and Fred Haise listening in during Apollo 11's descent

Saturn V SA-506, the rocket carrying the Apollo 11 spacecraft, moves out of the Vehicle Assembly Building towards Launch Complex 39.

The Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle lifts off with Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. at 9:32 a.m. EDT July 16, 1969, from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.

Columbia in lunar orbit, photographed from Eagle

Eagle in lunar orbit photographed from Columbia

Landing site relative to West crater

A photograph of Neil Armstrong taken by Buzz Aldrin. This is one of the few photographs of Armstrong on the lunar surface; most of the time he held the camera.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon as photographed by Neil Armstrong (Armstrong seen in the visor reflection along with Earth,[1] the Lunar Module Eagle, and the U.S. flag)

Aldrin salutes the deployed United States flag on the lunar surface.

Aldrin's bootprint; part of an experiment to test the properties of the lunar regolith

Eagle's ascent stage approaching Columbia

The plaque left on the ladder of Eagle

Columbia floats on the ocean as Navy divers assist in retrieving the astronauts.

Crew of Apollo 11 in quarantine after returning to Earth, visited by Richard Nixon

The Apollo 11 lunar landing mission crew, pictured from left to right, Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot.

Ticker tape parade in New York City

Original cockpit of the command module (CM) with three seats, photographed from above. It is located in the National Air and Space Museum, the very high resolution image was produced in 2007 by the Smithsonian Institution.

Apollo 11 Mobile Quarantine Facility on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia in 2009

Columbia on display in the Milestones of Flight exhibition hall at the National Air and Space Museum

Pieces of fabric and wood from the first airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer, traveled to the Moon in the lunar module and are displayed at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Apollo 11 space-flown silver Robbins medallion

Château de Rambouillet

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of the French Republic

Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1977

Takeo Miki was inaugurated as Prime Minister on December 9, 1974.

Wilson in 1966

Italy Aldo Moro, Prime Minister

United States Gerald Ford, President

G7 leaders during the emergency meeting about the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, hosted by the Netherlands

1975

G6

The 1st G6 summit took place on 15–17 November 1975, in Rambouillet, France. The venue for the summit meetings was the Château de Rambouillet near Paris.[1]

The Group of Six (G6) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2] This summit, and the others which would follow, were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a kind of frustrated rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was an element in the genesis of cooperation between France's president and West Germany's chancellor as they conceived the first summit of the G6.[3]

Later summits in what could become a continuing series of annual meetings were identified as the Group of Seven (G7) and Group of Eight (G8) summits — but this informal gathering was the one which set that process in motion.

1979

The Iranian Revolution

(Persian: انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân [ʔeɴɢeˌlɒːbe ʔiːɾɒːn]), or the Islamic Revolution (انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī),[4] refers to a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. It led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was superseded by the theocratic government of Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ouster of Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy.[5]

After the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Pahlavi aligned Iran with the Western Bloc and cultivated a close relationship with the United States in order to consolidate his power as an authoritarian ruler. Relying heavily on American support amidst the Cold War, he remained the Shah of Iran for 26 years after the coup, effectively keeping the country from swaying towards the influence of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union.[6][7] Beginning in 1963, Pahlavi implemented a number of reforms aimed at modernizing Iranian society, in what is known as the White Revolution. In light of his continued vocal opposition to the modernization campaign after being arrested twice, Khomeini was exiled from Iran in 1964. However, as major ideological tensions persisted between Pahlavi and Khomeini, anti-government demonstrations began in October 1977, eventually developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included elements of secularism and Islamism.[8][9][10] In August 1978, the deaths of between 377 and 470 people in the Cinema Rex fire — claimed by the opposition as having been orchestrated by Pahlavi's SAVAK — came to serve as a catalyst for a popular revolutionary movement across all of Iran,[11][12] and large-scale strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the entire country for the remainder of that year.

On 16 January 1979, Pahlavi left the country and went into exile as the last Iranian monarch,[13] leaving behind his duties to Iran's Regency Council and Shapour Bakhtiar, the opposition-based Iranian prime minister. On 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran, following an invitation by the government;[6][14] several thousand Iranians gathered to greet him as he landed in the capital city of Tehran.[15] By 11 February 1979, the monarchy was officially brought down and Khomeini assumed leadership over Iran while guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed Pahlavi loyalists in armed combat.[16][17] Following the March 1979 Islamic Republic referendum, in which 98% of Iranian voters approved the country's shift to an Islamic republic, the new government began efforts to draft the present-day Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran;[18][8][9][19][20] Khomeini emerged as the Supreme Leader of Iran in December 1979.[21]

The success of the Iranian Revolution was met with surprise throughout the world,[22] and was considered by many to be unusual in nature: it lacked many of the customary causes of revolutionary sentiment (e.g., defeat in war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military);[23] occurred in a country that was experiencing relative prosperity;[6][20] produced profound change at great speed;[24] was massively popular; resulted in the massive exile that characterizes a large portion of today's Iranian diaspora;[25] and replaced a pro-Western secular[26] and authoritarian monarchy[6] with an anti-Western Islamist theocracy[6][19][20][27] that was based on the concept of Velâyat-e Faqih (or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), straddling between authoritarianism and totalitarianism.[28] In addition to these, the Iranian Revolution sought the spread of Shia Islam across the Middle East through the ideological tenets of Khomeinism — particularly as a means of uprooting the region's status quo, which favoured Sunni Islam.[29] After the consolidation of Khomeinist factions, Iran began to back Shia militancy across the region in an attempt to combat Sunni influence and establish Iranian dominance within the Arab world, ultimately aiming to achieve an Iranian-led Shia political order.[30]

Iran, Gate of all nations

Iranian prime minister Mehdi Bazargan was an advocate of democracy and civil rights. He also opposed the cultural revolution and US embassy takeover.

Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Residents of Tehran participating in the demonstrations of 5 June 1963 with pictures of Ruhollah Khomeini in their hands

The Shah of Iran (left) meeting with members of the U.S. government: Alfred Atherton, William Sullivan, Cyrus Vance, Jimmy Carter, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1977

Ayatollah Khomeini in Neauphle-le-Château surrounded by journalists

Pro-Shah demonstration organized by the Resurgence Party in Tabriz, April 1978

Protests in summer 1978

Demonstration of 8 September 1978. The placard reads: We want an Islamic government, led by Imam Khomeini.

Demonstration of "Black Friday" (8 September 1978)

Tehran Ashura demonstration, 11 December 1978

Mohammad Beheshti in the Tehran Ashura demonstration, 11 December 1978

Iranian armed rebels during the revolution

Kazem Shariatmadari and Khomeini

Shah visiting Bakhtiar cabinet before his exit from Iran

The Shah is Gone — headline of Iranian newspaper Ettela'at, 16 January 1979, when the last monarch of Iran left the country

Two armed militants outside the Embassy of the United States, Tehran, where diplomats are held hostage. Behind them is a banner written: Long live anti-imperialism and democratic forces. Photograph by Abbas, dated 1979, from the Iran Diary series.[77]

Removal of Shah's statue by the people in University of Tehran

Khomeini at Mehrabad Airport

Mass demonstrations at College Bridge, Tehran

People accompanying Khomeini from Mehrabad to Behesht Zahra

Khomeini in Behesht Zahra

Khomeini before a speech at Alavi school

People celebrating anniversary of the revolution in Mashhad in 2014

1980

tito

Josip Broz (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Јосип Броз, pronounced [jǒsip brôːz]; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (/ˈtiːtoʊ/;[2] Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Тито, pronounced [tîto]), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 until his death in 1980.[3] During World War II, he was the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in German-occupied Europe.[4] He also served as the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 14 January 1953[1] until his death on 4 May 1980. Ideologically, Tito’s developments to communist ideology are known as Titoism.

He was born to a Croat father and Slovene mother in the village of Kumrovec, Austria-Hungary (now in Croatia). Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army of that time. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians during World War I, he was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in some events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent Civil War. Upon his return to the Balkans in 1918, he entered the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Having assumed de facto control over the party by 1937, he was formally elected its general secretary in 1939 and later its president, the title he held until his death. During World War II, after the Nazi invasion of the area, he led the Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–1945).[5] By the end of the war, the Partisans—with the backing of the invading Soviet Union—took power over Yugoslavia.

After the war, Tito was the chief architect of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), serving as the prime minister (1944–1963), president (1953–1980; since 1974 president for life), and marshal of Yugoslavia, the highest rank of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, he became the first Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony in 1948. He was the only leader in Joseph Stalin's lifetime to leave Cominform and begin with his country's own socialist program, which contained elements of market socialism. Economists active in the former Yugoslavia, including Czech-born Jaroslav Vaněk and Yugoslav-born Branko Horvat, promoted a model of market socialism that was dubbed the Illyrian model. Firms were socially owned by their employees and structured on workers' self-management; they competed in open and free markets. Tito managed to keep ethnic tensions under control by gradually delegating as much power as possible to each republic. The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution defined SFR Yugoslavia as a "federal republic of equal nations and nationalities, freely united on the principle of brotherhood and unity in achieving specific and common interest." Each republic was also given the right to self-determination and secession if done through legal channels. Lastly, Tito gave Kosovo and Vojvodina, the two constituent provinces of Serbia, substantially increased autonomy, including de facto veto power in the Yugoslav parliament. Tito built a very powerful cult of personality around himself, which was maintained by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia even after his death. Twelve years after his death, as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia dissolved and descended into a series of interethnic wars.

Some historians criticise Tito's presidency as authoritarian [6][7] and see him as a dictator,[8][9] and others characterise him as a benevolent dictator [10]—designations that are not mutually exclusive. He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad.[11] Viewed as a unifying symbol,[12] his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained further international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, alongside Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia.[13] With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, he received a total of 98 foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honour and the Order of the Bath.

1980

The Iran–Iraq War

was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq; there were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Muslims.[81][82][83] Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.

The Iran–Iraq War followed a long-running history of territorial border disputes between the two states, as a result of which Iraq planned to retake the eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab that it had ceded to Iran in the 1975 Algiers Agreement. Iraqi support for Arab separatists in Iran increased following the outbreak of hostilities; while claims arose suspecting that Iraq was seeking to annex Iran's Khuzestan province,[84] Saddam Hussein publicly stated in November 1980 that Iraq was not seeking an annexation of any Iranian territory.[85] It is believed that Iraq had sought to establish suzerainty over Khuzestan.[86] While the Iraqi leadership had hoped to take advantage of Iran's post-revolutionary chaos and expected a decisive victory in the face of a severely weakened Iran, the Iraqi military only made progress for three months, and by December 1980, the Iraqi invasion had stalled. The Iranian military began to gain momentum against the Iraqis and regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. After pushing Iraqi forces back to the pre-war border lines, Iran rejected United Nations Security Council Resolution 514 and launched an invasion of Iraq. The subsequent Iranian offensive within Iraqi territory lasted for five years,[87] with Iraq taking back the initiative in mid-1988 and subsequently launching a series of major counter-offensives that ultimately led to the conclusion of the war in a stalemate.[88][76]

The eight years of war-exhaustion, economic devastation, decreased morale, military stalemate, inaction by the international community towards the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraqi forces on Iranian soldiers and civilians, as well as increasing Iran–United States military tensions all culminated in Iran's acceptance of a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations Security Council. In total, around 500,000 people were killed during the Iran–Iraq War (with Iran bearing the larger share of the casualties), excluding the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the concurrent Anfal campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurdistan.[86][89] The end of the conflict resulted in neither reparations nor border changes,[89] and the combined financial losses suffered by both combatants is believed to have exceeded US$1 trillion.[89] There were a number of proxy forces operating for both countries: Iraq and the pro-Iraqi Arab separatist militias in Iran were most notably supported by the National Council of Resistance of Iran; whereas Iran re-established an alliance with the Iraqi Kurds, being primarily supported by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. During the conflict, Iraq received an abundance of financial, political, and logistical aid from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the overwhelming majority of Arab countries. While Iran was comparatively isolated to a large degree, it received a significant amount of aid from Syria, Libya, China, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, and South Yemen.

The conflict has been compared to World War I in terms of the tactics used by both sides, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across fortified defensive lines, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, Iranian human wave attacks, Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons, and deliberate attacks on civilian targets. A notable feature of the war was the state-sanctioned glorification of martyrdom among Iranian children; the discourses on martyrdom formulated in the Iranian Shia Islamic context led to the widespread usage of human wave attacks and thus had a lasting impact on the dynamics of the conflict.[90]

Meeting of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Houari Boumédiène and Saddam Hussein (left to right) during the Algiers Agreement in 1975.

Ruhollah Khomeini rose to power after the Iranian Revolution.

Explosion in Mehrabad Air Base in Tehran after Iraqi forces attacked Tehran on 22 September, 1980

Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr, who was also commander-in-chief, on a Jeep-mounted 106mm recoilless anti-tank gun. Banisadr was impeached in June 1981.

Location of Khuzestan Province in Iran which Iraq planned to annex

The Shatt al-Arab on the Iran–Iraq border

Destroyed Iranian C-47 Skytrain

Iranian F-14A Tomcats equipped with AIM-54A, AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles .

Resistance of the outnumbered and outgunned Iranians in Khorramshahr slowed the Iraqis for a month.

Iranian president Abulhassan Banisadr on the battlefront

The surprise attack on H-3 airbase is considered to be one of the most sophisticated air operations of the war.

Iranian Northrop F-5 aircraft during the war

Iraqi T-62 tank wreckage in Khuzestan Province, Iran

Iraqi soldiers surrendering after the Liberation of Khorramshahr

Saddam Hussein in 1982

95,000 Iranian child soldiers were made casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger.[167][168]

Furthest ground gains

Iranian POWs in 1983 near Tikrit, Iraq

Iranian child soldier

President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush work in the Oval Office of the White House, 20 July 1984.

Iraqi commanders discussing strategy on the battlefront (1986)

Operation Earnest Will: Tanker convoy No. 12 under US Navy escort (21 October 1987)

Iranian President Ali Khamenei on the battlefront during the Iran–Iraq War

Operation Dawn 8 during which Iran captured the Faw Peninsula.

Burned-out vehicles shown in the aftermath of Operation Mersad[citation needed]

Adnan Khairallah, Iraqi Defense Minister, meeting with Iraqi soldiers during the war

IRGC navy speedboats using swarm tactics

USS Vincennes in 1987 a year before it shot down Iran Air Flight 655

An Iranian soldier wearing a gas mask during the Iran–Iraq War.

The Iranian frigate IS Sahand burns after being hit by 20 U.S. air launched missiles and bombs, killing a third of the crew, April 1988[212]

Iranian soldiers captured during Iraq's 1988 offensives

Al-Shaheed Monument in Baghdad was erected to commemorate the fallen Iraqi soldiers during the war.

Iranian Martyrs Museum in Tehran

An Iraqi Mil Mi-24 on display at the military museum of Sa'dabad Palace in Iran

Stark listing following two hits by Exocet missiles.

Damage to a mosque in Khoramshahr, Iran, the city that was invaded by Iraq in September 1980

1982

The Falklands War

(Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities.

The conflict was a major episode in the protracted dispute over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted (and maintains) that the islands are Argentine territory,[4] and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and strongly favour British sovereignty. Neither state officially declared war, although both governments declared the islands a war zone.

The conflict had a strong effect in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the unfavourable outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, hastening its downfall and the democratisation of the country. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government, bolstered by the successful outcome, was re-elected with an increased majority the following year. The cultural and political effect of the conflict has been less in the UK than in Argentina, where it has remained a common topic for discussion.[5]

Diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, at which the two governments issued a joint statement.[6] No change in either country's position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit. In 1994, Argentina adopted a new constitution,[7] which declared the Falkland Islands as part of one of its provinces by law.[8] However, the islands continue to operate as a self-governing British Overseas Territory.[9]

1986

The Chernobyl disaster

[a] was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union.[1] Called the world's worst-ever civil nuclear incident,[2] it is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.[3]

The accident occurred during a safety test meant to measure the ability of the steam turbine to power the emergency feedwater pumps of an RBMK-type nuclear reactor in the event of a simultaneous loss of external power and major coolant leak. During a planned decrease of reactor power in preparation for the test, the operators accidentally dropped power output to near-zero, due partially to xenon poisoning. While recovering from the power drop and stabilizing the reactor, the operators removed a number of control rods which exceeded limits set by the operating procedures. Upon test completion, the operators triggered a reactor shutdown. Due to a design flaw, this action resulted in localized increases in reactivity within the reactor (i.e., "positive scram"). That brought about the rupture of fuel channels and a rapid drop in pressure, thereby prompting the coolant to flash to steam. Neutron absorption thus dropped, leading to an increase in reactor activity, which further increased coolant temperatures (a positive feedback loop). This process led to steam explosions and the melting of the reactor core.[4]

The meltdown and explosions ruptured the reactor core and destroyed the reactor building. This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire which lasted until 4 May 1986, during which airborne radioactive contaminants were released and deposited onto other parts of the USSR and Europe.[5][6] Approximately 70% landed in Byelorussia (now Belarus), 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) away.[7] The fire released about the same amount of radioactive material as the initial explosion.[3] In response to the initial accident, a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident, from which approximately 49,000 people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30 kilometres (19 mi), from which an additional ~68,000 people were evacuated.[8]

Following the reactor explosion, which killed two engineers and severely burned two more, a secret emergency operation to put out the fire, stabilize the reactor, and clean up the ejected radioactive material began. During the immediate emergency response, 237 workers were hospitalized, of which 134 exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Among those hospitalized, 28 died within the following three months, all of whom were hospitalized for ARS. In the following 10 years, 14 more workers (9 who had been hospitalized with ARS) died of various causes mostly unrelated to radiation exposure.[9]

The Soviet government engaged in a major cover-up of the disaster in 1986. When they finally acknowledged it, although without any details, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) then discussed the Three Mile Island accident and other American nuclear accidents, which Serge Schmemann of The New York Times wrote was an example of the common Soviet tactic of whataboutism. The mention of a commission also indicated to observers the seriousness of the incident,[10] and subsequent state radio broadcasts were replaced with classical music, which was a common method of preparing the public for an announcement of a tragedy in the USSR.[11]

Chernobyl's health effects to the general population are uncertain. An excess of 15 childhood thyroid cancer deaths were documented as of 2011.[12][13] A United Nations committee found that to date fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the fallout.[14] Determining the total eventual number of exposure related deaths is uncertain based on the linear no-threshold model, a contested statistical model.[15][16] Model predictions of the eventual total death toll in the coming decades vary. The most widely cited studies by the World Health Organization predict an eventual 9,000 cancer related fatalities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.[2]

Following the disaster, Pripyat was abandoned and eventually replaced by the new purpose-built city of Slavutych. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus was built by December 1986. It reduced the spread of radioactive contamination from the wreckage and protected it from weathering. The confinement shelter also provided radiological protection for the crews of the undamaged reactors at the site, which were restarted in late 1986 and 1987. However, this containment structure was only intended to last for 30 years, and required considerable reinforcement in the early 2000s. The Shelter was heavily supplemented in 2017 by the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, which was constructed around the old structure. This larger enclosure aims to enable the removal of both the sarcophagus and the reactor debris while containing the radioactive materials inside. Clean-up is scheduled for completion by 2065.[17]

Historical collections of the Chernobyl accident from the Ukrainian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (USFCRFC). April 26, 1986, signified the boundary between life and death. A new reckoning of time began. This photo was taken from a helicopter several months after the explosion. The destroyed Chernobyl reactor, one of four units operating at the site in Ukraine in 1986. No units operate today. (Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986) Copyright: IAEA Imagebank Photo Credit: USFCRFC

Abandoned objects in the evacuation zone

Piglet with dipygus on exhibit at the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum

Portraits of deceased Chernobyl liquidators used for an anti-nuclear power protest in Geneva

Anti-nuclear protest after the Chernobyl disaster on May Day, 1986 in Berlin…

No. 4 reactor site in 2006 showing the sarcophagus containment structure; Reactor No. 3 is to the left of the stack

Nuclear power protest in Berlin, 2011

New Safe Confinement in 2017

1989

The fall of the Berlin Wall

(German: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, preceded by the Solidarity Movement in Poland. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later and the German reunification took place in October the following year.

This section of the Wall's "death strip" featured Czech hedgehogs, a guard tower and a cleared area, 1977.

The press conference on 9 November 1989 by Günter Schabowski (seated on stage, second from right) and other East German officials which led to the fall of the Wall. Riccardo Ehrman is sitting on the floor of the podium with the table just behind him.[1]

Walking through Checkpoint Charlie, 10 November 1989

At the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989

"Mauerspecht" (November 1989)

The fall of the Wall (November 1989)

An East German guard talks to a Westerner through a broken seam in the Wall in late November 1989.

A crane removes a section of the Wall near Brandenburg Gate on 21 December 1989.

Almost all of the remaining sections were rapidly chipped away. December 1990.

West Germans peer at East German border guards through a hole in the Wall on 5 January 1990.

Short section of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, March 2009

Souvenir chunk of concrete from the Wall

First stage in Soviet forces withdrawal from Afghanistan, 20 October 1986

An animated series of maps showing the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which later led to conflicts in the post-Soviet space

Erich Honecker, East German communist leader.

US President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Red Square, Moscow, 31 May 1988

Hungarians demonstrate at state TV headquarters, 15 March 1989

Monday demonstration against the government in Leipzig on 16 October 1989

Memorial of the Velvet Revolution in Bratislava (Námestie SNP), Slovakia

Protests beneath the monument in Wenceslas Square, in Prague

Armed civilians during the Romanian Revolution. The revolution was the only violent overthrow of a communist state in the Warsaw Pact.

Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989

Berlin Wall, October 1990, saying "Thank You, Gorbi"

Tanks in Moscow's Red Square during the 1991 coup attempt

Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H. W. Bush on board the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky, Marsaxlokk Harbour

The facade of the Grand Kremlin Palace was restored to its original form after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The State Emblem of the USSR and the embedded letters forming the abbreviation of the USSR (CCCP) were both removed and replaced by five Russian double-headed eagles. An additional restoration of the coat of arms of the various territories of the Russian Empire were placed above the eagles.

Eritrean War of Independence against Ethiopia ended in 1991

Following Georgia's declaration of independence in 1991, South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared their desire to leave Georgia and remain part of the Soviet Union/Russia.[122]

Current military situation in separatist Nagorno-Karabakh

Global effect of 1988–1992 Revolutions

NATO has added 13 new members since the German reunification and the end of the Cold War.

1989

the Fall of Communism

The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism,[3] was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nations,[4][5][6][7][8] a play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. It also led to the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union—the world's largest communist state—and the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. The events, especially the fall of the Soviet Union, drastically altered the world's balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era.

The earliest recorded protests were started in Kazakhstan, then part of the Soviet Union, in 1986 with the student demonstrations [9][10]—the last chapter of these revolutions ended in 1996 when Ukraine abolished the Soviet political system of government when Ukraine adopted its new constitution replacing the Soviet-era constitution.[11] The main region of these revolutions was in Eastern Europe, starting in Poland [12][13] with the Polish workers' mass strike movement in 1988, and the revolutionary trend continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. On 4 June 1989, the trade union Solidarity won an overwhelming victory in a partially free election in Poland, leading to the peaceful fall of communism in that country. Also in June 1989, Hungary began dismantling its section of the physical Iron Curtain, while the opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary in August 1989 set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, in which the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. This led to mass demonstrations in the cities such as Leipzig and subsequently to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which served as the symbolic gateway to the German reunification in 1990. One feature common to most of these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance, demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to the pressure for change.[14] Romania was the only country where citizens and opposition forces used violence to overthrow its communist regime,[15] although the country was politically isolated from the rest of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War is considered to have "officially" ended on 3 December 1989 during the Malta Summit between the Soviet and American leaders.[16] However, many historians argue that the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 was the end of the Cold War.[17]

The Soviet Union itself became a multi-party semi-presidential republic from March 1990 and held its first presidential election, marking a drastic change as part of its reform program. The Union dissolved in December 1991, resulting in seven new countries which had declared their independence from the Soviet Union in the course of the year, while the Baltic states regained their independence in September 1991 along with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. The rest of the Soviet Union, which constituted the bulk of the area, continued with the establishment of the Russian Federation.

Albania and Yugoslavia abandoned communism between 1990 and 1992, and by the end Yugoslavia had split into five new countries. Czechoslovakia dissolved three years after the end of communist rule, splitting peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.[18] North Korea has abandoned Marxism–Leninism since 1992.[19]

The impact of these events were felt in many third world socialist states throughout the world. Concurrently with events in Poland, protests in Tiananmen Square (April–June 1989) failed to stimulate major political changes in Mainland China, but influential images of courageous defiance during that protest helped to precipitate events in other parts of the globe. Three Asian countries, namely Afghanistan, Cambodia [20] and Mongolia, had successfully abandoned communism by 1992–1993, either through reform or conflict. Additionally, eight countries in Africa or its environs had also abandoned it, namely Ethiopia, Angola, Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, Mozambique, Somalia, as well as South Yemen (unified with North Yemen).

The political reforms varied, but in only four countries were communist parties able to retain a monopoly on power, namely China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. However, these countries would later make economic reforms in the coming years to adopt some forms of market economy under market socialism. The European political landscape changed drastically, with several former Eastern Bloc countries joining NATO and the European Union, resulting in stronger economic and social integration with Western Europe and North America. Many communist and socialist organisations in the West turned their guiding principles over to social democracy and democratic socialism. In contrast, and somewhat later, in South America, a pink tide began in Venezuela in 1999 and shaped politics in the other parts of the continent through the early 2000s. Meanwhile, in certain countries the aftermath of these revolutions resulted in conflict and wars, including various post-Soviet conflicts that remain frozen to this day as well as large-scale wars, most notably the Yugoslav Wars which led to Europe's first genocide since the Second World War in 1995.[21][22]

1990

The Gulf War

[b] was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led Liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991.

On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded neighbouring Kuwait,[27] and had fully occupied the country within two days. Initially, Iraq ran the occupied territory under a puppet government known as the "Republic of Kuwait" before proceeding with an outright annexation in which Kuwaiti sovereign territory was split, with the "Saddamiyat al-Mitla' District" being carved out of the country's northern portion and the "Kuwait Governorate" covering the rest. Varying speculations have been made regarding the true intents behind the Iraqi invasion, most notably including Iraq's inability to repay the debt of more than US$14 billion that it had borrowed from Kuwait to finance its military efforts during the Iran–Iraq War. Kuwait's demands for repayment were coupled with its surge in petroleum production levels, which kept revenues down for Iraq and further weakened its economic prospects;[28] throughout much of the 1980s, Kuwait's oil production was above its mandatory quota under OPEC, which kept international oil prices down.[29] Iraq interpreted the Kuwaiti refusal to decrease oil production as an act of aggression towards the Iraqi economy, leading up to the hostilities.[30] The invasion of Kuwait was immediately met with international condemnation, including in Resolution 660 by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC),[31] which unanimously imposed economic sanctions against Iraq in Resolution 661. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher [32] and American president George H. W. Bush deployed troops and equipment into Saudi Arabia and openly urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. In response to the joint call, an array of countries joined the American-led coalition, forming the largest military alliance since World War II. The bulk of the coalition's military power was from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and Egypt as the largest lead-up contributors, in that order; Saudi Arabia and the Kuwaiti government-in-exile paid around US$32 billion of the US$60 billion cost to mobilize the coalition against Iraq.[33]

UNSC Resolution 678 adopted on 29 November 1990 offered Iraq one final chance until 15 January 1991 to implement Resolution 660 and withdraw from Kuwait; it further empowered states after the deadline to use "all necessary means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Initial efforts to dislodge the Iraqi presence in Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on 17 January 1991, which continued for five weeks. During this time, as the Iraqi military found itself unable to ward off the coalition's attacks, Iraq began to fire missiles at Israel. While the coalition itself did not include Israel, the Iraqi leadership had launched the campaign under the expectation that the missile barrage would provoke an independent Israeli military response, and hoped that such a response would prompt the coalition's Muslim-majority countries to withdraw (see Arab–Israeli conflict). However, the jeopardization attempt was ultimately unsuccessful as Israel did not respond to any Iraqi attacks, and Iraq continued to remain at odds with most Muslim-majority countries. Iraqi missile barrages aimed at coalition targets stationed in Saudi Arabia were also largely unsuccessful, and on 24 February 1991, the coalition launched a major ground assault into Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. The offensive was a decisive victory for American-led coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and promptly began to advance past the Iraq–Kuwait border into Iraqi territory. A hundred hours after the beginning of the ground campaign, the coalition ceased its advance into Iraq and declared a ceasefire. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas straddling the Iraq–Saudi Arabia border.

The conflict marked the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the American network CNN.[34][35][36] It has also earned the nickname Video Game War, after the daily broadcast of images from cameras onboard American bombers during Operation Desert Storm.[37] The Gulf War has gained notoriety for including three of the largest tank battles in American military history.[38]

George H. W. Bush's presidential portrait

Donald Rumsfeld, US special envoy to the Middle East, meets Saddam Hussein on 19–20 December 1983.

Map of Kuwait

Kuwait Air Force McDonnell Douglas A-4KU Skyhawk ground-attack aircraft

Lion of Babylon main battle tanks, common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War by the Iraqi Army.

Kuwaiti Armed Forces M-84 main battle tanks

An Iraqi Air Force Bell 214ST transport helicopter, after being captured by a US Marine Corps unit at the start of the ground phase of Operation Desert Storm

President Bush visiting American troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day, 1990

American F-15Es parked in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield

US Army soldiers from the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade during the Gulf War

M3 Bradleys of L Troop, 3rd ACR, stand in line at a holding area during the build-up to Operation Desert Shield.

Countries that deployed coalition forces or provided support[1] (On behalf of Afghanistan, 300 Mujaheddin joined the coalition on 11 February 1991. Niger contributed 480 troops to guard shrines in Mecca and Medina on 15 January 1991.)[1]

General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. and President George H. W. Bush visit US troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day, 1990.

Dick Cheney meets with Prince Sultan, Minister of Defence and Aviation in Saudi Arabia to discuss how to handle the invasion of Kuwait.

Gen. Colin Powell (left), Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., and Paul Wolfowitz (right) listen as Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney addresses reporters regarding the 1991 Gulf War.

The USAF F-117 Nighthawk, one of the key aircraft used in Operation Desert Storm

Aftermath of Amiriyah shelter bombing by U.S. Air Force, which killed at least 408 civilians in Baghdad

Military operations during Khafji's liberation

Scud Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) with missile in upright position

American AH-64 Apache helicopters proved to be very effective weapons during the 1991 Gulf War.

Ground troop movements 24–28 February 1991 during Operation Desert Storm

Coalition troops from Egypt, Syria, Oman, France, and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm

HMAS Sydney in the Persian Gulf in 1991

Argentine Navy Alouette III helicopter on board USNS Comfort, February 1991

Canadian CF-18 Hornets participated in combat during the Gulf War.

French and American soldiers inspecting an Iraqi Type 69 tank destroyed by the French Division Daguet during Operation Desert Storm

One of the Italian tornadoes used in the operation

British Army Challenger 1 main battle tank during Operation Desert Storm

Iraqi Kurds fleeing to Turkey shortly after the war

Destroyed Iraqi civilian and military vehicles on the Highway of Death

1992

Maastricht Treaty

The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration"[2] chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and (with less precision) for common foreign and security policies. Although these were widely seen to presage a "federal Europe", the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union.

Against the background of the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, and in anticipation of accelerated globalisation, the treaty negotiated tensions between member states seeking deeper integration and those wishing to retain greater national control. The resulting compromise faced what was to be the first in a series of EU treaty ratification crises.

The Flag of Europe is the flag and emblem of the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE). It consists of a circle of 12 golden (yellow) stars on a blue background. It was created in 1955 by the CoE and adopted by the EU, then the European Communities, in the 1980s. The CoE and EU are distinct in membership and nature. The CoE is a 47-member international organisation dealing with human rights and rule of law, while the EU is a quasi-federal union of 27 states focused on economic integration and political cooperation. Today, the flag is mostly associated with the latter. It was the intention of the CoE that the flag should come to represent Europe as a whole, and since its adoption the membership of the CoE covers nearly the entire continent. This is why the EU adopted the same flag. The flag has been used to represent Europe in sporting events and as a pro-democracy banner outside the Union.

The Treaty of Maastricht, here shown at an exhibition in Regensburg. The book is opened at a page containing the signatures and seals of the ministers representing the heads of state of Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Greece

Stone memorial in front of the entry to the Limburg Province government building in Maastricht, Netherlands, commemorating the signing of the Maastricht Treaty

Ratification of the treaty was completed by then twelve members of the EC by mid 1993 and came into legal force on 1 November 1993.

Dolly (taxidermy)

1996

Dolly

(5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) was a female Finn-Dorset sheep and the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a cell taken from a mammary gland. Her cloning proved that a cloned organism could be produced from a mature cell from a specific body part.[2] Contrary to popular belief, she was not the first animal to be cloned.[3]

The employment of adult somatic cells in lieu of embryonic stem cells for cloning emerged from the foundational work of John Gurdon, who cloned African clawed frogs in 1958 with this approach. The successful cloning of Dolly led to widespread advancements within stem cell research, including the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells.[4]

Dolly lived at the Roslin Institute throughout her life and produced several lambs.[5] She was euthanized at the age of six years due to a progressive lung disease. No cause which linked the disease to her cloning was found.[6]

Dolly's body was preserved and donated by the Roslin Institute in Scotland to the National Museum of Scotland, where it has been regularly exhibited since 2003.

1997

The Kyoto Protocol

was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties (Canada withdrew from the protocol, effective December 2012)[5] to the Protocol in 2020.

The Kyoto Protocol implemented the objective of the UNFCCC to reduce the onset of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to "a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (Article 2). The Kyoto Protocol applied to the seven greenhouse gases listed in Annex A: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).[8] Nitrogen trifluoride was added for the second compliance period during the Doha Round.[9]

The Protocol was based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: it acknowledged that individual countries have different capabilities in combating climate change, owing to economic development, and therefore placed the obligation to reduce current emissions on developed countries on the basis that they are historically responsible for the current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The Protocol's first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. All 36 countries that fully participated in the first commitment period complied with the Protocol. However, nine countries had to resort to the flexibility mechanisms by funding emission reductions in other countries because their national emissions were slightly greater than their targets. The financial crisis of 2007–08 helped reduce the emissions. The greatest emission reductions were seen in the former Eastern Bloc countries because the dissolution of the Soviet Union reduced their emissions in the early 1990s.[10] Even though the 36 developed countries reduced their emissions, the global emissions increased by 32% from 1990 to 2010.[11]

A second commitment period was agreed to in 2012 to extend the agreement to 2020, known as the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, in which 37 countries had binding targets: Australia, the European Union (and its then 28 member states, now 27), Belarus, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine stated that they may withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol or not put into legal force the Amendment with second round targets.[12] Japan, New Zealand, and Russia had participated in Kyoto's first-round but did not take on new targets in the second commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets were Canada (which withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012) and the United States (which did not ratify). Canada's decision to withdraw was to the dismay of Environment minister, Peter Kent. If they were to remain as a part of the protocol, Canada would be hit with a $14 billion fine, which would be devastating to their economy, hence the reluctant decision to exit.[13] As of October 2020, 147[6][14] states had accepted the Doha Amendment. It entered into force on 31 December 2020, following its acceptance by the mandated minimum of at least 144 states, although the second commitment period ended on the same day. Of the 37 parties with binding commitments, 34 had ratified.

Negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ended in 2020. This resulted in the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is a separate instrument under the UNFCCC rather than an amendment of the Kyoto Protocol.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations measured at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1958 to 2022 (also called the Keeling Curve).

Air pollution by brick factories.

Monument, situated in Copenhagen, commemorating the September 11, 2001 attacks on The World Trade Center in New York.

Plumes of smoke billow from the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, after a Boeing 767 hits each tower during the September 11 attacks.

President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at the World Trade Centre Memorial Wall, on the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack

President George W. Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.

President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Legislation, Friday, Oct. 26, 2001 in the East Room of the White House. Standing behind the President are (from left): Attorney General John Ashcroft, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. James Sensenbrenner and Sen. Bob Graham. Photo by Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library

Rebuilt One World Trade Center nearing completion in July 2013 by architect David Childs

2001

World Trade Center

The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11,[d] were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States military) in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane was similarly intended to hit a federal government building in D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the global war on terror.

The first impact was that of American Airlines Flight 11. It was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03,[e] the World Trade Center's South Tower was hit by United Airlines Flight 175. Both 110-story skyscrapers collapsed within an hour and forty-one minutes,[f] bringing about the destruction of the remaining five structures in the WTC complex, as well as damaging or destroying various other buildings surrounding the towers. A third flight, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, flew in the direction of Washington, D.C. Alerted to the previous attacks, the plane's passengers attempted to gain control of the aircraft, but the hijackers ultimately crashed the plane in a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, near Shanksville at 10:03 a.m. Investigators determined that Flight 93 target was either the United States Capitol or the White House.

Within hours of the attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency determined that al-Qaeda was responsible. The United States formally responded by launching the war on terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which had not complied with U.S. demands to expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite its leader, Osama bin Laden. The U.S.'s invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—its only usage to date—called upon allies to fight al-Qaeda. As U.S. and NATO ground forces swept through Afghanistan, bin Laden fled to the White Mountains, where he narrowly avoided capture by U.S.-led forces.[11] Although bin Laden initially denied any involvement, in 2004 he formally claimed responsibility for the attacks.[3] Al-Qaeda's cited motivations included U.S. support of Israel, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq. After evading capture for almost a decade, bin Laden was killed by the U.S. military on May 2, 2011. U.S. and NATO troops remained in Afghanistan until 2021.

The attacks resulted in 2,977 non-hijacker fatalities, an indeterminate number of injuries, and substantial long-term health consequences, in addition to at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.[12][13] It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in human history as well as the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in U.S. history, with 340[14] and 72 killed,[15][16] respectively. The destruction of the World Trade Center and its environs seriously harmed the New York City economy and induced global market shocks. Many other countries strengthened anti-terrorism legislation and expanded their powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site (colloquially "Ground Zero") took eight months and was completed in May 2002, while the Pentagon was repaired within a year. After delays in the design of a replacement complex, the One World Trade Center began construction in November 2006 and opened in November 2014.[17][18] Memorials to the attacks include the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, and the Flight 93 National Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site.

2003

The Iraq War

[c][d] was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government.[53] US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks, despite no connection between Iraq and the attacks.

In October 2002, Congress granted Bush the power to decide whether to launch any military attack in Iraq.[54] The Iraq War began on 20 March 2003,[55] when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as coalition forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year and executed three years later. The power vacuum following Saddam's demise, and mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led to widespread civil war between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against coalition forces. The United States responded with a build-up of 170,000 troops in 2007.[56] This build-up gave greater control to Iraq's government and military.[57] In 2008, President Bush agreed to a withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq. The withdrawal was completed under Barack Obama in December 2011.[58][59]

The United States based most of its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program[60] and posed a threat to the United States and its allies.[61][62] Additionally, some US officials accused Saddam of harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda.[63] In 2004, the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda.[64] No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq.[65] Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam–al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on insufficient evidence rejected by intelligence officials.[65][66] The rationale for war faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally.[67] Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter.[68] The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom's decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was "far from satisfactory", and that, these conclusions taken together, the war was unnecessary.[69][70][71] When interrogated by the FBI, Saddam Hussein confirmed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the US invasion.[72]

In the aftermath of the invasion, Iraq held multi-party elections in 2005. Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014. The al-Maliki government enacted policies that alienated the country's previously dominant Sunni minority and worsened sectarian tensions. In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State launched a military offensive in northern Iraq and declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, leading to Operation Inherent Resolve, another military response from the United States and its allies. According to a 2019 US Army study, Iran emerged as "the only victor" of the war.[73]

An estimated 151,000 to 1,033,000 Iraqis died in the first three to five years of conflict. In total, the war caused 100,000 or more civilian deaths - about 61% of the total death count[74] - as well as tens of thousands of military deaths (see estimates below). The majority of deaths occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007. Subsequently, the War in Iraq of 2013 to 2017, which is considered a domino effect of the invasion and occupation, caused at least 155,000 deaths, in addition to the displacement of more than 3.3 million people within the country.[75][76][77] Additionally, the war hampered the domestic popularity and public image of Bush,[78] and also strongly affected Blair's popularity in the United Kingdom, leading to his resignation in 2007.[79][80]