The Pan-European Picnic breaches the Iron Curtain
1989 · Event
At a 'peace picnic' on the Austro-Hungarian border, the gate is opened for a symbolic three hours — and six hundred East German holidaymakers sprint through while the border guards, on quiet instruction, look away. The Curtain's first hole; within months, tens of thousands follow.
On these timelines: Fall of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe & the Balkans, Cold War, Master
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 Communist Party surrenders its monopoly (1990)
- The Soviet Union holds its first contested elections (1989)
- The Red Army leaves Afghanistan (1989)
Around 1989
- Yugoslav Wars (1991)
- Chernobyl disaster (1986)
- Gulf War (1990)
- (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (Bryan Adams) (1991)
- 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 1980s (1980)
- Pop music: the 1990s (1990)
- Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)