Nagorno-Karabakh ignites
1988 · Event
An Armenian-majority region petitions to leave Soviet Azerbaijan, and pogroms answer within the week. The first open ethnic conflict inside the USSR reveals what glasnost has uncovered: the nationalities question was never solved, only silenced — and Moscow no longer terrifies anyone into peace.
On these timelines: Fall of the Soviet Union, Master, Russia & the USSR, Cold War
More from Fall of the Soviet Union
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)
- Resignation of Gorbachev (1991)
- Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader (1985)
- Ukraine votes to leave the Soviet Union (1991)
- The Warsaw Pact dissolves itself (1991)
- The Pan-European Picnic breaches the Iron Curtain (1989)
- The Communist Party surrenders its monopoly (1990)
- The Soviet Union holds its first contested elections (1989)
Around 1988
- Iranian Revolution (1978)
- Yugoslav Wars (1991)
- Gulf War (1990)
- Chernobyl disaster (1986)
- (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (Bryan Adams) (1991)
- Night Fever (Bee Gees) (1978)
- Invention of the World Wide Web (1989)
- Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (Pink Floyd) (1979)
- That's The Way Love Goes (Janet Jackson) (1993)
- Pop music: the 1990s (1990)