Astronauts Tom Stafford and Aleksei Leonov shake hands when their Apollo and Soyuz craft successfully dock in space

After 18 years as General Secretary of the Communist party in the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev dies in office

New Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev brings glasnost ('openness') and perestroika ('reform') to the USSR

22-year-old Gary Kasparov defeats Anatoly Karpov and becomes the youngest-ever world champion in chess

The Soviets launch the first module (the living quarters) of their Mir Space Station

A Soviet nuclear power station explodes at Chernobyl, scattering radioactive material over a wide area

The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announces that Soviet troops will leave Afghanistan, handing victory to the mujaheddin

The USSR completes the phased withdrawal of its troops from Aghanistan

Boris Yeltsin, impatient with the pace of reform under Gorbachev, resigns from the Communist party

Former Communist Boris Yeltsin is elected leader of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic

Boris Yeltsin foils a hard-line Communist coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, on holiday at the time in the Crimea

The Soviet region of Chechnya proclaims its independence from the USSR, calling itself the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Three Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) declare independence, leading to the formal disbanding of the USSR

Eight more Soviet Socialist republics vote to join the three founder members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the defunct USSR, handing power to Boris Yeltsin as president of the new Russian republic

Loyal troops storm the parliament in Moscow, ending a putsch against President Yeltsin

After 18 years in the USA, living in Vermont, Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to post-Communist Russia

Russian troops enter Chechnya to crush the armed separatist movement

Russian troops withdraw from Grozny after a peace deal that leaves Chechnya with effective autonomy

The Russian army returns to Chechnya after Islamic militants commit acts of terrorism

Boris Yeltsin announces his completely unexpected resignation on New Year's Eve and effectively hands power to Vladimir Putin as acting president

Vladimir Putin wins the presidential election in Russia on the first round

Chechen terrorists take hostage the entire audience of a Moscow theatre in an atrocity resulting in the death of more than 150 people

In Russia's presidential election Vladimir Putin easily wins a second term

Chechen terrorists take an entire school hostage, in Beslan in southern Russia, resulting in more than 300 deaths