1991 World History
 Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) Imapress/Archive Photos |
- 1991
- U.S. and Allies at war with Iraq (Jan. 15). Warsaw Pact dissolves military alliance (Feb. 25). Cease-fire ends Persian Gulf War; UN forces are victorious (April 3). Europeans end sanctions on South Africa (April 15). Supreme Court limits death row appeals (April 16). Winnie Mandela sentenced in kidnapping (May 13). William H. Webster retires as director of CIA; Robert H. Gates succeeds him (May 14). France agrees to sign 1968 treaty banning spread of atomic weapons (June 3). Communist government of Albania resigns (June 4). Jiang Qing, widow of Mao, commits suicide (June 4). South African Parliament repeals apartheid laws (June 5). Warsaw Pact dissolved (July 1). Boris N. Yeltsin inaugurated as first freely elected president of Russian Republic (July 10). Bush-Gorbachev summit negotiates strategic arms reduction treaty (July 31). China accepts nuclear nonproliferation treaty (Aug. 10). Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia win independence (Aug. 25); Bush recognizes them (Sept. 2). Haitian troops seize president in uprising (Sept. 30). U.S. suspends assistance to Haiti (Oct. 1). Professor Anita Hill accuses Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment (Oct. 6); Senate, 52–48, confirms Thomas for Supreme Court after stormy hearings (Oct. 15). Israel and Soviet Union resume relations after 24 years (Oct. 18). U.S. indicts two Libyans in 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland (Nov. 15). Anglican envoy Terry Waite and U.S. Prof. Thomas M. Sutherland freed by Lebanese (Nov. 18). Last three U.S. hostages freed in Lebanon (Dec. 2–4). Soviet Union breaks up after President Gorbachev's resignation; constituent republics form Commonwealth of Independent States (Dec. 25).
