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1921 Abkhazia becomes an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union.
1922 Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasia come together to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1923 Vladimir Lenin suffers a stroke, his third, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
1923 Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union
1924 Soviet Union officially declares that Lenin died January 21.
1924 The United Kingdom recognizes Soviet Union.
1924 A Soviet sports newspaper Sovetskiy Sport is founded.
1927 Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union
1929 Leon Trotsky expelled from Soviet Union; he moves to Turkey January 29 and applies for sanctuary in France and Germany
1930 Abkhazia and Georgia, autonomous republics of the Soviet Union, are merged.
1931 ''Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR'' programme, abbreviated as GTO, is introduced in the Soviet Union
1933 The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.
1934 the Candidate of Science degree is established in the USSR.
1934 Soviet Union joins the League of Nations
1934 In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolaev (it is widely thought that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered this murder).
1937 31 people executed in the Soviet Union for "Trotskyism"
1938 Soviet Union announces officially that Nikholai Bukharin has been executed
1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Hitler and Stalin agree to divide eastern Europe between themselves (Finland, the Baltic states and eastern Poland to the USSR; Western Poland to Germany).
1939 Cease Fire ending undeclared Border War between The Soviet Union (and Mongolian allies) and Japan.
1939 Soviet Union invades Poland and then occupies eastern Polish territories.
1939 Winter War begins: Soviet forces attack Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war.
1940 Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow ending the Winter War. Finns, along with the world at large, were shocked by the harsh terms.
1940 The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
1941 Soviet Union and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
1941 Mass deportations by Soviet Union authorities take place in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1941 World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa
1941 World War II: Finland attack the Soviet Union to seek the opportunity of revenge in the Continuation War.
1941 World War II: Operation Countenance - United Kingdom and Soviet forces invade Iran.
1941 World War II: Soviets announce the destruction of massive Dniepr River dam at Zaporozhye to prevent its capture by the Germans.
1941 World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Deutsche deported to Siberia.
1941 Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran is forced to resign in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
1941 World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
1941 World War II: Soviet Union government moves to Kuibyshev, but Stalin remains in Moscow.
1941 World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
1941 World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.
1941 World War II: Battle of Moscow: Temperatures around Moscow drop to −12 °C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
1942 World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.
1943 World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
1943 World War II: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
1944 Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.
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1944 Ion Antonescu, prime minister of Romania, is arrested and a new government is established. Romania exits the war against Soviet Union joining the Allies.
1944 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin begin a nine-day conference in Moscow to discuss the future of Europe.
1945 The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union begin the Vistula-Oder Offensive in Eastern Europe against the Nazis.
1945 World War II: Soviets occupy Warsaw
1945 World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leave to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
1945 World War II: Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theater conflict against Japan.
1945 World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin begin the Yalta Conference (ends February 11)
1945 World War II: Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Nazis.
1945 World War II: Soviet Union forces invade Austria and take Vienna. Alger Hiss congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing about the Western betrayal at the Yalta Conference.
1945 World War II: Elbe Day, United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin. Soviet soldiers hoist the red flag over the ''Reichstag'' building.
1945 World War II: Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army; Norway arrests Vidkun Quisling; Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
1945 Czechoslovakia cedes Ruthenia to Soviet Union
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union begins its offensive against Japan in the then Japanese controlled Chinese region of Manchuria.
1945 US troops occupy southern Korea, Soviet Union occupy the north. This arrangement proves to be the beginning of a divided Korea.
1945 Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko defects to Canada. He helps the West gain an understanding of Soviet spy rings in North America.
1946 Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).
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1946 Soviet Union and Switzerland reform diplomatic relations.
1946 Cold War: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appeals to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster."
1947 A meteor creates a crater into Sikhote-Alin, Soviet Union
1947 Propaganda: The ''Voice of America'' begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
1948 Cold War: President Harry S. Truman issues the second peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union (the first peacetime draft occurred in 1940 under President Roosevelt).
1949 Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts its Blockade of Berlin.
1949 Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, code named "Joe 1." Its design imitated the American plutonium bomb that was droped on Nagasaki in 1945.
1949 Soviet Union vetoes United Nations membership of Ceylon, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Jordan and Portugal.
1950 The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty
1950 Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by giving them top secret atomic bomb data.
1950 The Soviet Union claims to have an atomic bomb.
1952 Last Finnish war reparations to Soviet Union.
1952 Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.
1953 The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.
1953 After an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin collapses, having suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.
1953 After 29 years of ruling the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin dies.
1953 Austria and Soviet Union form diplomatic relations
1953 Soviet Union and Yugoslavia form diplomatic relations
1953 Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a Division (military) of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
1953 Soviet prime minister Georgi Malenkov announces that Soviet Union has a hydrogen bomb
1953 United Nations does not accept Soviet Union's suggestion to accept China as a member
1953 Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
1953 First German prisoners of war return from Soviet Union to West Germany
1953 Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrenti Beria has been executed
1954 Soviet Union no longer demands war reparations from East Germany
1954 The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference.
1954 Soviet Union recognizes sovereignty of East Germany but Soviet troops remain in the country.
1954 Vladimir Petrov defects from the Soviet Union and asks to seek political asylum in Australia.
1954 USSR tests nuclear weapon
1955 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. Until then, despite the end of World War II, the USSR was formally at war with Germany.
1955 Mir Mine, the first diamond mine of the USSR, is discovered.
1956 Vyacheslav Molotov resigns as a foreign minister of Soviet Union; he later becomes ambassador in Mongolia.
1956 Labour riots at Poznan, Poland, are crushed with heavy loss of life. Soviet troops fire at crowd that protests high prices - 53 dead.
1956 Hungarian revolution against the pro-Soviet government. Soviet Union intervenes. Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact.
1956 1956 Hungarian Revolution: more Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush a revolt that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
1957 Andrei Gromyko becomes foreign minister of Soviet Union.
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1957 Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.
1957 Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter space - a dog named Laika.
1958 The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3
1959 Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (this was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).
1960 May 16 — Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union, thus ending a Big Four summit in Paris.
1960 July 1 — A Soviet MiG fighter north of Murmansk in the Barents Sea shoots down a 6-man RB-47. Two United States Air Force officers survive and are imprisoned in Moscow's dreaded Lubyanka prison.
1960 August 19 — Cold War: In Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
1960 August 19 — Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 5, with the dogs Belka and Strelka (Russian for "Squirrel" and "Little Arrow"), 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants. The spacecraft returns to earth the next day and all animals are recovered safely.
1960 October 12 — Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a United Nations General Assembly meeting, to protest discussion of Soviet Union policy toward Eastern Europe.
1960 December 1 — A 5-ton Soviet spacecraft containing animals, insects and plants is launched into orbit; it burns up upon re-entry.
1960 December 4 — The admission to the United Nations of Mauritania is vetoed by the USSR.
1960 December 7 — The United Nations Security Council is called into session by the USSR, to consider Soviet demands that the U.N. seek the immediate release of former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba.
1961 British authorities announce that they have discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London.
1961 In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the two surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960. (see RB-47H shot down)
1961 The Soviet submarine ''K-19'' reactor leak occurs in the North Atlantic.
1961 Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58 megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya. It remains the largest ever (man-made) explosion.
1961 The Soviet Union vetoes Kuwait's application for United Nations membership.
1961 The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.
1962 A trade pact is signed between Cuba and the Soviet Union.
1962 The Soviet government changes all place names honoring Molotov, Kaganovich and Georgi Malenkov.
1962 The Soviet Union agrees to send arms to Cuba.
1962 The Canadian Alouette 1, the first satellite built outside the United States and the Soviet Union, is launched from Vandenberg AFB in California.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues the next day between the United States and the Soviet Union, putting the entire world under threat of a nuclear war.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1963 Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union.
1963 The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
1964 The Soviet Union launches two scientific satellites, Elektron I and II, from a single rocket.
1964 Soviet Union military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany; the three U.S. flyers parachute to safety.
1965 Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin invites the leaders of India and Pakistan to meet in the Soviet Union to negotiate.
1965 The Soviet Union declares its support of African countries in case Rhodesia unilaterally declares independen
1965 Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe from Baikonur, Kazakhstan toward Venus (on March 1, 1966 it became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet).
1965 The Soviet Union announces that it has shipped rockets to North Vietnam.
1966 Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of Soviet Union, becomes candidate member of the Central Committee.
1966 While Soviet author and translator Valeri Tarsis is abroad, the Soviet Union negates his citizenship.
1966 The 23rd Communist Party Conference is held in the Soviet Union - Leonid Brezhnev demands that U.S. troops leave Vietnam, and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying.
1966 The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1966 Pope Paul VI and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko meet in the Vatican - the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Union.
1966 Fiat signs a contract with the Soviet government to build a car factory in theSoviet Union.
1966 The Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October.
1966 France and the Soviet Union sign a treaty for cooperation in nuclear research.
1967 The USA, Soviet Union and UK sign the Outer Space Treaty.
1967 The Soviet Union protests the demonstrations before its embassy in Peking.
1967 The Soviet Union announces that it has sent troops near the Chinese border.
1967 The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the United States and the United Kingdom, banning nuclear weapons from outer spa
1967 The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Israel.
1969 The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.
1969 Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
1969 Venera program: ''Venera 5'', a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus.
1969 Venera program: Soviet probe Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus' atmosphere, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
1969 Serious border clashes occur between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
1969 Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
1970 The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.
1970 A U.S. Air Force plane makes an emergency landing near Leninakan, Soviet Union. The Soviets release the American officers, including two generals, November 10.
1970 Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world, and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
1971 Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.
1971 India signs a 20-year treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union.
1972 The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
1972 Libya and the Soviet Union sign a cooperation treaty.
1973 The Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.
1975 The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
1976 Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate, on the island of Hokkaido in Japan, and requests political asylum from the United States.
1977 The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24.
1977 A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the USSR.
1979 A Soviet biowarfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus an unknown amount of livestock.
1979 The Soviet Union exchanges Gerald Brook for spies Peter and Helen Kroger with United Kingdom.
1979 The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.
1982 In the Soviet Union, former KGB head Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.
1982 The leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, is released from 11 months of internment near the Soviet border.
1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire."
1983 Maine schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov, after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.
1983 Samantha Smith flies to the Soviet Union (see April 25).
1983 Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspa All 269 on board are killed.
1983 The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight 007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspa
1984 The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
1984 A Soviet cruise missile plunges into Inarinjärvi lake in Finnish Lapland. Finnish authorities announce the fact in public on January 3, 1985.
1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and ''de facto'' leader of the Soviet Union.
1985 Thomas Patrick Cavanagh is sentenced to life in prison for attempting to sell stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union.
1985 Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1986 Human Rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky is released by the Soviet Union and leaves the country.
1986 The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
1986 The Soviet passenger liner ''Admiral Nakhimov'' collides with the bulk carrier ''Pyotr Vasev'' in the Black Sea and sinks almost immediately, killing 398.
1987 Nineteen-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defenses and lands a private plane on Red Square in Moscow. He is immediately detained (but is released on Wednesday, August 3, 1988).
1987 In the Soviet Union, Vladimir Nikolayev is sentenced to death for cannibalism.
1988 In the Geneva accords, the Soviet Union commits itself to withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.
1988 In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle ''Buran'' is launched by an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight (the first and last space flight for the shuttle).
1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet Union armored column leaves Kabul, ending 9 years of military occupation.
1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan: The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.
1989 Two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, join hands to demand freedom and independence, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain.
1989 An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.
1990 Lithuania declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1990 Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
1990 The Soviet Union announces that Lithuania's declaration of independence is invalid.
1990 The Soviet Union apologizes for the Katyn Massacre.
1990 Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1990 U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks.
1990 Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and reform his nation.
1991 The Soviets storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independen
1991 Latvia and Estonia vote to become independent of the Soviet Union.
1991 Germany formally regains complete independence after the four post-World War II occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union) relinquish all remaining rights.
1991 Collapse of the Soviet Union: Soviet President | 
