Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв) dies. The last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, he championed the reform processes associated with perestroika and glasnost, and played a key role in the chain of events that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany. A key figure in the end of the Cold War, he was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
