Here’s what happened in December 1991. You can click on the links to go to Wikipedia for fuller details
- December 1 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukrainians vote overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum.
- December 4
- Journalist Terry A. Anderson is released after 7 years’ captivity as a hostage in Beirut (the last and longest-held American hostage inLebanon).
- Pan American World Airways ends operations.
- John Leonard Orr, one of the most prolific serial arsonists of the 20th century, is arrested in California. In the ensuing years, Orr is convincted in both Federal and state court.
- December 8
- Leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine meet and sign an agreement ending the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in the Białowieża Forest Nature Reserve in Belarus.
- A referendum on the constitution of Romania is accepted as valid.
- December 12 – Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR denounced Union Treaty of 1922 and ratified Belavezha Accords instead.
- December 15 – The Egyptian ferry Salem Express sinks in the Red Sea, killing more than 450.
- December 19 – Paul Keating replaces Bob Hawke as the new prime minister of Australia.
- December 20 – A Missouri court passes the death sentence on Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria, for the honor killing of their daughter Palestina.
- December 21 – The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NAC-C) meets for the first time, the day on which the Soviet Union ceases to exist.source
- December 24 – Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin sends a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, stating that Russia should be a successor to collapsing Soviet Union within the United Nations Organization.
- December 25
- Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union, from which most republics have already seceded, anticipating the dissolution of the 73-year-old state.
- Russian SFSR officially changes its name to the Russian Federation.
- December 26 – The Cold War ends when the Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union.
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