Browse

Contemporary (1950 CE - Present)

Source

Meeting Poster for Solidarity Rally

This electoral poster invites readers to attend a meeting on May 1, 1989 to discuss the upcoming election. A tentative translation of the poster is: "Solidarity's Struggle.

Source

Ethnic Groups in Yugoslavia

In 1990, the Yugoslav Communist Party divided into several separate parties, one for each of the six Yugoslav Republics. Tensions among the ethnic groups of Yugoslavia, divided among the republics, led to an outbreak of a civil war by 1991.

Source

Disaster in Armenia, 1988

On December 7, 1988, an earthquake with a 6.9 magnitude struck the Soviet Republic of Armenia. With powerful aftershocks continuing for months following, Armenia struggled to recover.

Source

Radiation Contamination after the Chernobyl Disaster

On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine led to the radioactive contamination of the surrounding countryside and to radioactive fallout throughout Eastern and Western Europe.

Source

Soviet Map, 1982

This map provides one representation of the national composition of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. As the distribution of colors indicates, each of the major ethnic groups occupied specific regions of the country.

Source

Soviet Nationalities Map, 1989

This map offers a different representation of the same information as in Document 1. In this case, the population distribution of each Soviet republic is depicted in the pie charts and in the accompanying table.

Source

Soviet Administrative Map, 1989

This map describes the administrative structure of the Soviet Union. The fifteen Soviet federative socialist republic provided one division along national lines, yet this map also demonstrates how each region was further divided into territorial units.

Video still of Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate
Source

Tear Down this Wall

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a major speech on the Cold War with the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall as a back drop. In staging this speech, President Reagan hoped to draw a parallel with the historic speech delivered in Berlin by President John F.

Video still of Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate
Source

Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a major speech on the Cold War with the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall as a back drop. Since the end of World War II, Berlin had been one of the main symbols of the Cold War.

Source

Map of Distribution of Languages of Austria-Hungary after World War I

The original map came from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. Timişoara (Temesvar in Hungarian) in Western Romania was long under Habsburg rule. Like much of Austria-Hungary, the city has been ethnically and religiously diverse.