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| 1976, Nov. 22–24 |
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| Brezhnev visited Romania and signed a statement on the further development of cooperation and friendship. | 1 |
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| 1977, Aug. 1–2 |
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| More than 35,000 coal miners went on strike to protest a new pension law, food shortages, and overtime work. | 2 |
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| 1980s |
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| Foreign debts and economic difficulties: in Sept. 1981 Romania asked Western banks to roll over a large portion of its short-term hard-currency debt. An economic slowdown since the mid-1970s had resulted in price increases and large hard-currency debts (estimated at $10–14 billion at the end of 1982) owed to Western creditors. Serious economic difficulties, including energy and food shortages, continued into the late 1980s. | 3 |
| Ideological controls: Restrictions of cultural and press freedom became increasingly repressive. From the early 1980s, government policies also discouraged religious activities, especially non-Catholic religious groups. Discrimination was alleged against ethnic minorities, such as Germans, Hungarians, and Jews. | 4 |
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| 1981, Oct. 9 |
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| Citizens who were hoarding food were persecuted, and only official stores were designated for groceries. | 5 |
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| 1984–86 |
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| Measures to stimulate the birth rate: in February 1984 the government introduced measures making abortion illegal for women under the age of 42. In early 1986 increased taxation was imposed on childless couples. | 6 |
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| 1987, Nov. 15 |
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| Thousands of workers across the country protested wage cuts and food and energy shortages. | 7 |
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| 1988, March |
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Ceau escu announced a systematization policy, under which about eight thousand villages were to be demolished and their inhabitants forcibly resettled in new “agro-industrial centers.” | 8 |
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| 1989, Feb. 24 |
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| More than 13,000 Romanians emigrated to Hungary. | 9 |
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| March 17 |
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| An editorial in the daily Communist Party newspaper, Scinteia, declared that anyone criticizing the current situation within Romania would be guilty of espionage and treason. | 10 |
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| April 13 |
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| Ceauescu declared that Romania had the capability to produce and use nuclear weapons. | 11 |
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| Aug. 9 |
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| László Tokés, a Calvinist minister from Transylvania, was arrested for criticizing the Ceauescu government on Canadian television. (He was later released.) | 12 |
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| Dec |
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| The fall of Ceauescu and the formation of a provisional government. The clash of demonstrators and the Ceauescu government led to violence in Timioara and Bucharest that turned into a brief but bloody civil war, ending with the execution of Ceauescu and his wife on Dec. 25. In the following days, the National Salvation Front (NSF) formed a provisional government, with its leader, Ion Iliescu, as provisional president. The provisional government abolished the death penalty and promised elections. | 13 |
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