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| Dec. 1 |
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| Gorbachev met Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, the first encounter between the leader of the world's Catholics and the head of an officially atheist superpower. | 1 |
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| Dec. 3 |
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| Gorbachev met with U.S. president George Bush, and they declared the end of the cold war. | 2 |
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| Dec. 14 |
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| Death of Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet Union's foremost human rights campaigner. | 3 |
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| Dec. 19–20 |
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| The Lithuanian Communist Party declared itself independent of the CPSU, providing the most serious nationalist challenge to date to President Gorbachev. | 4 |
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