5751 AM · 1991 CE · world history
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
A superpower disappears without a war, leaving fifteen states on the map.
Gorbachev's perestroika failed to fix the economy but freed speech, and one republic after another declared independence. The August 1991 coup collapsed and hastened the end; in December the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared the Union dissolved. The Cold War was over, and emigration gates opened.