was a turning point in political history because a wave of revolutions swept the Eastern Bloc in Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power sharing, coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, embracing the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Romania in December, and ending in December with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Second Chechen War (Втора́я чече́нская война́), also known as the Second Chechen Сampaign (Втора́я чече́нская кампа́ния), was an armed conflict on the territory of Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, also with militants of various Islamist groups, fought from August to April .

Abu Bakar Bashir (أبو بكر باعشير) also Abubakar Ba&#;asyir, Abdus Somad, and Ustad Abu ("Teacher Abu"); born August ) is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid. He ran the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Ngruki, Central Java, which he co-founded with Abdullah Sungkar in . He was in exile in Malaysia for years during the secular New Order administration of President Suharto resulting from various activities, including urging the implementation of Sharia law. Intelligence agencies and the United Nations claim he is the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah (also known as JI) and has links with Al-Qaeda. In August , he publicly pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and his declaration of a caliphate.

Ahmed Abdi Godane (Axmed Cabdi Godane, أحمد عبدي جودان; July – September , also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, was the Emir (leader) of Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group based in Somalia with ties to Al Qaeda. Godane, who received training and fought in Afghanistan, was designated by the United States as a terrorist. He succeeded Mukhtar Robow who had held the position for several months after Aden Ayro&#;s death. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike on September in southern Somalia.

The Chaldean Catholic Church (ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, ʿīdtha kaldetha qāthuliqetha; Arabic: الكنيسة الكلدانية al-Kanīsa al-kaldāniyya; translation) is an Eastern Catholic particular church (sui juris) in full communion with the Holy See and the rest of the Catholic Church, with the Chaldean Patriarchate having been originally formed out of the Church of the East in .