The 21-year authoritarian rule of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos ended when Corazon
Aquino, the widow of an assassinated opposition leader, challenged her nation to hit the streets
in massive displays of public disobedience.
Marcos tried to rig the election, but the people revolted and Aquino became president,
the first woman in Asia to hold that title.
A major split between the Soviet Union and China in 1960 broke the unity of the communist
bloc.
From that moment on, the sun was setting on the USSR.
For a time, it stood tall against the U.S.-led western alliance in many conflicts and struggles
for power during the Cold War, but when communism began collapsing in eastern Europe, Soviet
leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev stood by as the dominos fell.
Poland was the first country to switch to a democratic government, and Lithuania was
the first to declare its independence from the USSR.
These events set off a wave of change, and by the end of 1991, 14 countries had declared
independence from the Soviet Union.
What was left became Russia, which also had a democratically elected, anticommunist leader.
The Cold War had come to an end.
And with the world’s dominant supporter of communism gone, the rest of the world quickly
abandoned the ideology too.
The racially discriminatory and segregationist system of apartheid in South Africa, where
a smaller white population dominated the economic and political rights of a larger black majority,
came to a close after years of negotiation allowed a truly democratic election in 1994.
The winner was the revolutionary hero Nelson Mandela.
Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milošević was overthrown after repressing his opponents,
refusing to let go of power, and ordering his forces to commit war crimes during the
Kosovo conflict.
NATO action helped bring a swift end to the bloodshed and Milošević to justice.
Twenty days of protests against the ineffective government of Georgia culminated in opposition
leader Mikheil Saakashvili storming a Parliament session while carrying a red rose.
Two months later he won the presidency in an unopposed election.
He then embraced a pro-Western foreign policy and declared European integration as his main
priority, creating tensions with Russia that continue to this day.
A leaked audio recording of Ukraine’s President ordering the kidnapping of a journalist helped
fuel protests against his government’s poor handling of the economy.
Around 20% of the country participated in the Orange Revolution that made opposition
leader Viktor Yushchenko president, after surviving poisoning in a failed assassination
attempt.
The presidency of Kurmanbek Bakiyev in Kyrgyzstan collapsed after his government became increasingly
authoritarian and corrupt.
When he tried to rig his reelection the people revolted and he fled the country.
In December 2010 a street vendor in Tunisia lit himself on fire to protest the humiliation
and harassment he suffered at the hands of a corrupt government.
Inspired by his incredible act of self sacrifice, thousands of Tunisians filled the streets
to protest high unemployment, inflation of food prices, corruption, and a lack of political
freedom.
Just 28 days later President Ben Ali fled the country.
Soon, the entire Arab world was hit with a wave of demonstrations, protests, riots, coups,
and civil wars.
For the first time, the world was seeing the power of sms social media and the Internet
as a revolutionary tool.
Many of the civil uprisings were met with violent responses from authorities.
Hundreds of thousands have died and millions have fled from the large scale conflicts that
erupted: the Syrian Civil War, the Iraqi civil war with ISIS, the Egyptian Crisis and ousting
of President Hosni Mubarak, the Libyan Civil War that killed Muammar Gaddafi, and the crisis
in Yemen.
Although the ultimate outcome of the Arab Spring is not yet known, so far only the Tunisian
revolution has resulted in constitutional democratic governance.
In November 2013 Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a deal he had previously
agreed to that would’ve created a closer relationship between Ukraine and the European
Union.
Instead, he agreed to terms with Russia after President Vladimir Putin offered $15 billion
in loans in exchange for rejecting the EU deal.
This last minute reversal triggered demonstrations that intensified for several months.
After hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Kiev, filling the Maidan square, violent
clashes broke out with police, killing more than 100 people.
In day five of the violence, Yanukovych fled to Russia and was replaced by a pro-Western
interim government.
Putin responded by sending Russian troops, disguised as Ukrainian separatists, to occupy
and ultimately annex the Ukrainian controlled territory of Crimea.
Its blatant violation of the territorial sovereignty of another nation resulted in sanctions against
Russia and the condemnation of the international community.
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