November 17, 1989 – December 29, 1989
Peaceful protests in Czechoslovakia bring an end to Communist rule; Václav Havel is elected president.
Tim Berners-Lee submits "Information Management: A Proposal" at CERN, the origin of the World Wide Web.
East Germany opens its border and crowds cross the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War's end.
The German Democratic Republic joins the Federal Republic of Germany, ending more than four decades of division.
A series of ethnic conflicts and wars of independence accompany the break-up of Yugoslavia, killing an estimated 130,000–140,000 people and involving numerous war crimes.
The Supreme Soviet formally dissolves the USSR, a day after Gorbachev's resignation.
Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine explodes, spreading radioactive material across Europe in the worst nuclear accident in history.