Political and Civilian History of the Soviet Superpower

1960
	1 May	An American 'U-2' spy plane piloted by Gary Powers is shot down by SA-2 'Guideline' missiles while flying over Sverdlovsk, as a result the Paris summit meeting fails.
	May	Khrushchev arrives at the United Nations Assembly in New York
	30 May	Boris Pasternak, the writer of Doctor Zhivago, dies in Moscow at age 70.
	9 July	Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev warned the United States against intervention in Cuba and said Soviet forces would support the Cuban people.
	12 October	At a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Nikita Khrushchev became angry during a debate about colonialism and pounded several times on his desk with his shoe.
1961
	12 April	Vostok 1 space mission: Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space. (1)
		The Berlin Wall is constructed.
		22nd Party Congress New Party program and rules
	1 September	Soviet Union resumes atmospheric nuclear testing.
	31 October	Stalin's remains are removed from Lenin Mausoleum and re-buried as part of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization programs.
	11 November	The city of Stalingrad is renamed Volgograd.
	9 December	Nikita Khrushchev announces that the USSR has in its possession nuclear bombs of 100 megatons.
1962
		Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is published.
	22 October	The Cuban Missile Crisis begins.
	26 October	Nikita Khrushchev sends letter to President Kennedy offering to remove missiles from Cuba in exchange to the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey. The offer was refused by the United States.
	November	The Soviet missile sites in Cuba are dismantled.
	18 November	The cosmonaut Vladimir Vladimirovich Karashtin was born.
	December	The SS-7 ICBM becomes operational. The ABM-1 'Griffon' (later known as the 'Galosh') is briefly deployed around Leningrad.
1963
		The rift between the Soviet Union and Chinese government grows wider.
		Central Committee Conference on Ideology is held. Ehrenburg, Evtushenko and others attacked for non-conformity
		The Taganka Theater is founded.
	June	Vostok 6 space mission: First woman in space - Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. (1)
	25 July	The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is signed by the United States, Soviet Union, and Britain in Moscow. The treaty prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. It goes into effect on 10 October 1963.
	30 July	Izvestia, a Soviet newspaper, reports that the spy Kim Philby had been given asylum in Moscow. Philby along with two others had been spying for the Soviets in England.
	10 August	A 'hotline' is established between Washington and the Kremlin to resolve differences directly in times of crisis.
	December	The SS-8 ICBM becomes operational.
1964
	February-March	The poet Joseph Brodsky is put on trial
	13 October	Voskod 1 mission: Three cosmonauts aboard the first multi-crew spacecraft lands safely after a 24 hour long mission. (1)
	15 October	Nikita Khrushchev is removed as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. Alexei Kosygin becomes Soviet Premier.
1965
		Demonstrations are held in Moscow against US bombing of North Vietnam.
		Mikhail Sholokhov wins Nobel Prize in literature.
	18 March	Voskod 2 mission: Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov makes the first space walk. (1)
1966
	January	Luna 9 mission: First soft landing of a probe on the moon. (1)
	February	Andrei Sinyavski & Yulii Daniel trial for publishing abroad
		23rd Party Congress is held and Eighth Five-Year Plan is proposed.
1967
	8 January	The Soviet Union conducts a test of a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). This escalates the arms race with the West.
	27 January	Outer Space Treaty is signed between the United States and Soviet Union. It bans the testing of nuclear weapons in orbit.
		Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defects to the West.
		Yuri Andropov becomes head of the KGB.
	18 October	Venera 4, a Soviet space probe, entered the atmosphere of Venus and sent data back to Earth before contact was lost 27 kilometers above the Venusian surface.
	October	Kosmos 186 and 188 missions: First automatic rendezvous and docking of satellites. (1)
		Fiftieth anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution is celebrated.
1968
		Moscow-NY commercial airline service begins (PanAm and Aeroflot)
		The Dissident (inakomyshlyashchii) movement begins.
	1 July	The Non-Proliferation Treaty is signed between major powers. It aimed to reduce or stop the spread of nuclear weapon and missile technology. France, China, Argentina, Brazil, India, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa, and Spain refuse to sign.
	29 July	Leaders of both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia meet at Cierna to resolve their differences over Czech reforms.
	21 August	Soviet and Eastern Bloc forces cross into Czechoslovakia just before 0000 hours that morning. They advance on Prague.
	16 October	The Soviet Union signs a treaty with Czechoslovakia concerning the eventual withdrawal of troops from that country.
1969
	January	Soyuz 4 & 5 missions: First link up of two manned vehicles and transfer of crew. (1)
	October	Soyuz 6 mission: First launch of three manned ships.
	12 November	The writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn is expelled from the Soviet Writers Union for "anti-social behavior".
	17 November	Preliminary round of Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) open between the Soviet Union and United States in Helsinki, Finland.
1970
		US-Soviet Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is signed.
		US-USSR cultural exchange begins.
		Centenary of Lenin's birth.
	8 October	Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian novelist, wins the Nobel Prize for literature.
	17 November	The Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft lands an eight wheeled lunar rover on the surface of the moon. (1)
1971
	February	24th Party Congress is held and Ninth Five-Year Plan is proposed.
	11 February	A treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the ocean floor is signed.
	April	First prototype of manned space station launched. (1)
	30 June	The three man crew of the Soyuz II spacecraft, died on re-entry due to a drop in air pressure. The cosmonauts had set a space endurance record of 570 hours 22 minutes.
	3 September	The Soviet ambassador to East Germany and the British, American, and French ambassadors to West Germany sign the Four-Power Agreement (also known as the Quadripartite Agreement). It came into force on June 3, 1972 and stipulated that traffic to and from West Berlin would be unimpeded, existing ties of West Berlin to the West Germany were recognized. The status of West Berlin was no to be changed.
	11 September	Nikita Khrushchev dies.
	24 September	Ninety Russian diplomats are accused of spying and are expelled from Britain after a Soviet defector reveals that they are spying.
	27 November	The Soviet Mars 2 spacecraft becomes first space probe to crash land on Mars.
1972
		Restrictions on Jewish emigration are passed.
		Fiftieth anniversary of USSR
	May	President of the United States, Richard Nixon, travels to Moscow for summit. SALT negotiations begin.
	26 May	The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) is signed by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. It consisted of two major agreements. The first was the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the second was the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Weapons.
	18 July	Some 20,000 Soviet military advisors in Egypt are expelled after Egypt accuses the Soviet Union of failing to provide them with promised arms shipments.
	15 September	Spain and the Soviet Union sign a trade agreement, the first pact between the two since the Spanish Civil War.
	13 October	An Aeroflot Il-62 passenger plane crashes near Moscow killing 176 people.
1973
		The Soviet Delta-1 class nuclear missile submarines become operational.
	18 July	A Soviet supersonic Tu-144 airliner crashes near Goussainville France killing 6 crewmen and 8 people on the ground. It was the worlds first supersonic airliner crash.
	28 August	The first member of the British royal family, Princess Anne, visits the Soviet Union. She arrived to take part in an equestrian event in Kiev.
1974
		Solzhenitsyn is expelled to West Germany. Third Moscow summit is held.
	3 July	The threshold test-ban treaty is signed between United States and Soviet Union. It limits nuclear weapons tests to a maximum of 150 kilotons.
	November	In Vladivostok, President Ford and Secretary Brezhnev begin framework on SALT II treaty to further limit nuclear weapons deployment.
1975
	15 July	The Russian Soyuz 19 space mission launches with intent to link up with U.S. Apollo 18 spacecraft. (1)
	17 July	Both Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft succeed in docking in space, becoming first international craft to do so. (1)
	26 March	The Convention against Bacteriological and Toxic weapons comes into effect. The USSR is a signatory to the agreement.
	1 August	The Soviet Union and the West sign the last elements of the Helsinki Agreement on human rights.
	9 October	Andrei Sakharov became the first Soviet citizen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but he was denied a visa to attend the award ceremony. Sakharov was a a nuclear physicist who later became a human-rights advocate, and Soviet dissident.
	22 October	The Soviet Venera 9 space probe landed successfully on Venus.
1976
		Solzhenitsyn is expelled to West Germany
		The Third Moscow summit is held.
		25th Party Congress is held and 10th five year plan is proposed.
1977
		The dissidents Ginzburg, Rudenko, Orlov, Shcharinskii are arrested.
		'Master and Margarita' is staged at Taganka Theater.
		Soviets begin deploying the SS-20 mobile intermediate range nuclear missile system in western Russia and in the Soviet Far East. This alarms NATO and increases tensions with the West.
	24 May	Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny is removed from the Politburo.
	7 October	The 'Brezhnev' Constitution is adopted. It replaced the constitution introduced by Stalin in 1936.
1978
	January	Soyuz 27 mission completes first triple docking in space. (1)
		Solzhenytsin gives his speech at Harvard.
	8 June	The Soviet United Nations Undersecretary for Political and Security Council Affairs defects to the United States.
	14 July	Russian dissident Anatoly Shcharansky, a founding member of the Helsinki Group (who monitored Soviet observance of human rights), was sentenced to 13 years in prison.