1989

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• On 3 February, the 35-year regime of President Alfredo Stroesner of Paraguay comes to an end when he is overthrown by a military coup.

• On 24 March, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground on the Alaskan coast, spilling an estimated 64 million litres of oil.

• On 26 March, voters in the Soviet Union have for the first time a choice of candidates for the elections to the Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin wins 89% of the vote in his constituency; many senior party officials fail to get elected.

• On 5 April, head of the Solidarity union Lech Walesa and the Polish government sign an agreement for political and economic reforms. Twelve days later, Solidarity is legalised, and on 4 June, it achieves a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections.

• On 3 June, approximately 2,000 Chinese pro-democracy demonstrators are massacred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

• On 23 June, President dos Santos of Angola and Dr Jonas Savimbi, leader of the Unita rebels, sign a declaration ending the 14-year civil war.

• On 20 July, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma's National League for Democracy in Burma, is placed under house arrest by the military junta.

• On 6 September, Frederik Willem de Klerk becomes president of South Africa and begins to take measures to end apartheid.

• On 23 October, a Hungarian republic is declared, with multi-party democracy.

• On 9 November, East German government opens its borders, and the following day, the Berlin Wall is pulled down amid popular celebrations.

• On 2 December, US president George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union officially declare the end of the Cold War.

• In Chile on 14 December, General Augusto Pinochet allows democratic elections. His military dictatorship is peacefully replaced.

• On 19 December, United States troops invade Panama to arrest General Manuel Noriega. He surrenders on 3 January and is taken to Florida to face drug-trafficking and racketeering charges. (Convicted on 9 April 1992.)

• On 25 December, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena are executed. The first free elections since 1937 follow in May 1990.

• On 29 December, playwright and dissident Václav Havel is elected Czechoslovakia's first non-Communist president in 41 years.

• Architect I M Pei designs a controversial glass pyramid to cover the new entrance to the Louvre museum in Paris.

• American pop star Madonna releases 'Like a Prayer', a song whose video causes controversy and is condemned by religious groups.

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