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In the spring of 1989, elections were held: “alternative elections.” This redundant phrase, which today provokes smirks, back then had everyone in a state of euphoria. We had a choice!

Tractors for Putin, toxic waste for Kaliningrad, and Reagan and Gorbachev for their modern-day counterparts. Also sweet wine, state secrets, and salt.

Thirty years ago today, US President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years later, the wall came down after a German bureaucrat misspoke.

Where we take you back in time to the collapse of the Soviet Union, through press and reportage as it unfolded at the time.

Twenty-five years later, we take a look back at the August 19 coup attempt in Russia. Led by the Gang of Eight, men who owed their political careers to Mikhail Gorbachev, the coup plotters were attempting to restore dictatorship in the ailing Soviet Union.

It's been over two decades since the coup of August 1991, and only half of Russians remember it. But that's not all...

A look back at the heady Gorbachev era, a time of rationing and glasnost, perestroika and cooperatives, when everything seemed possible.

Twenty-five years ago, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, it was a time of hope and relief. Since the 1940s we had held our breath, limping from crisis to crisis, hoping that Dr. Strangelove was not hiding in a dark corner, waiting to make his play.