19871990

The period spanning 1987 to 1990 is a transitional era in world history, notable for shifts from late Cold War tensions toward geopolitical realignment and rapid economic change. It featured reformist policies in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, including glasnost and perestroika, which altered international diplomacy and contributed to fundamental changes in Eastern Europe and beyond.

Key political and economic developments included the 1987 stock market crash known as Black Monday, signaling instability in global financial markets. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, the Velvet Revolution brought political change in Czechoslovakia, and China witnessed the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. The Soviet–Afghan War concluded with a Soviet withdrawal completed by 1989. In 1990 Germany was reunified, Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa, and Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War era and a reconfiguration of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

Economically, many regions advanced privatization and market liberalization, fostering a trajectory toward globalization that would accelerate in the 1990s. Technological developments during these years included significant progress in personal computing and the early development of the World Wide Web, with work in 1990 that would lay groundwork for later public adoption of the Internet. Cultural and scientific shifts accompanied these changes, influencing media, industry, and governance.

The 1987–1990 period thus contributed to the end of the Cold War framework and to the emergence of a new international order characterized by greater political plurality and integrated global markets.