The parliament elects Vaclav Havel president.
After nearly 20 years of virtual internal exile, Prague Spring leader Alexander Dubcek is elected chairman of the Czechoslovak parliament.
Ceausescu, rapidly losing his grip on power, organizes a rally in Bucharest. He is interrupted by jeers, whistling, and shouts of “Ceausescu, dictator!” Pictures of the rally and the seemingly bewi...
Egon Krenz resigns as Communist Party chief. He is replaced as head of state by Manfred Gerlach, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The parliament approves Civic Forum proposals for a constitutional amendment ending the Communist Party’s guaranteed leading role in society and sets up a commission to oversee an investigation of ...
Results from the previous day’s referendum, the first free national vote in 42 years, show voters have blocked the ruling party’s plan to hold an early election in January and backed the opposition...
Press reports in East Germany reveal corruption and profiteering by senior officials under the Honecker government.
Human-rights, student, and cultural groups found Civic Forum in a Prague theater. The group, led by Vaclav Havel, demands the resignation of those linked to the 1968 Soviet invasion and the repress...
Students demonstrate peacefully in Prague on the 50th anniversary of the death of Jan Opletal, a student murdered by the Nazis in 1938. Riot police intervene, injuring hundreds. Rumors circulate th...
Zhivkov resigns. His successor, Mladenov, declares that “there is no alternative to restructuring” and agrees to roundtable discussions with the opposition parties. He predicts free elections in th...
Leader Egon Krenz issues a statement announcing that “private trips abroad can be applied for” and that “permits will be granted promptly.” Not waiting for confirmation, crowds begin gathering at b...
One day after publishing a draft document stating that every citizen has the right to travel abroad or emigrate, the East German cabinet resigns.
Two weeks after Bulgarian police forcibly broke up a protest by environmental group Ecoglasnost calling for greater public discussion on large industrial projects, the group demonstrates outside th...
Hundreds of thousands of East Germans march through Leipzig, calling for democratic reform.
Erich Honecker is removed from power and replaced by Egon Krenz. On national television, the new party chief and head of state says, “My motto remains work, work, work, and more work, but work whic...
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