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SubscribeRevolutions - when the order broke.
The moments the old arrangement stopped working and a new one had to be argued into being.
0 recaps · 0 decades
2021Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan
Twenty years of nation-building collapsed in twenty days.
2020Hong Kong National Security Law
2014Occupy Central Hong Kong Democracy Movement
The 79-day Umbrella Movement marked the first mass pro-democracy uprising in Hong Kong and presaged the territory's loss of autonomous freedoms.
20112011 Egyptian Revolution
2010Tunisian Revolution & Arab Spring
Street protests and civil unrest toppled President Ben Ali, igniting a cascade of revolutions across the Arab world.
2005Cedar Revolution Protests
Mass demonstrations following Hariri's death forced Syrian military withdrawal and represented a rare moment of cross-sectarian Lebanese unity.
1997Hong Kong Handover
Britain's return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997, ended 156 years of colonial rule and tested the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework.
1993Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
The Velvet Divorce peacefully separated Czech and Slovak republics in the post-Cold War reorganization of Central Europe.
1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union
When reforming a superpower accidentally demolishes it instead.
1990German Reunification Treaty Signed
German Reunification Treaty Signed
1989The Fall of the Berlin Wall
An accidental press conference, a confused border guard, and the end of a 28-year division
1989Tiananmen Square Massacre
1989Solidarity Movement Legalization in Poland
1989Fall of the Iron Curtain
The symbolic and literal collapse of communist Eastern Europe's barrier with the West transformed global geopolitics and ended Cold War divisions.
1980Gdańsk Shipyard Strikes & Solidarity
Lech Wałęsa led striking workers at the Lenin Shipyard to form Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc and a catalyst for Eastern European liberation.
1980Solidarity Movement Poland Strike
The Gdańsk shipyard strikes under Lech Wałęsa catalyzed the movement that would dismantle Soviet control across Eastern Europe.
1979Iranian Revolution & Fall of the Shah
Iranian Revolution & Fall of the Shah
1979Ayatollah Khomeini Returns to Iran
The exiled religious leader's arrival from France catalyzed the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty and Islamic Republic's founding.
1975Death of Franco; Spain Transitions to Democracy
Franco's death enabled Spain's peaceful transformation from authoritarian rule to a modern constitutional monarchy without civil conflict.
1975Spanish Transition to Democracy
Spain's peaceful transition from Franco's 36-year dictatorship to constitutional democracy became a model for post-authoritarian political reform across Eastern Europe and Latin America.
1975Khmer Rouge Establishes Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge takeover initiated one of the 20th century's most devastating genocides, killing approximately two million Cambodians in a failed agrarian utopia.
1974Carnation Revolution Portugal
Military coup toppling 48-year dictatorship; bloodless revolution earning its floral epithet.
1968Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
A bullet in Memphis, a nation in flames.
1968