11-13 January 1990 -- one-half of Vilnius’ 600,000 population
demonstrate for pro-independence, to ‘welcome’ visiting
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Here with the local
communist party leader Algirdas Brazauskas.

By KR Slade

• 1980’s -- economic problems in the USSR; rise of ‘Solidarity’ in Poland
• 1985 -- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces new Soviet policies of ‘glastnost’ (i.e., ‘political openness’) and ‘perestroika’ (i.e., ‘political and economic restructuring’)
• 3 June 1988 -- in Vilnius, the Lithuanian ‘Sajudis’ (i.e., ‘restructuring’) movement is founded; mostly artists; 17 of the 35 initial members were members of the Communist Party
• 22 October 1988 -- first Sajudis General Congress meets: first organised opposition to the Communist Party
• March-May 1989 -- Sajudis wins legislative seats in the USSR’s highest body of Soviet administration, the Congress of People's Deputies
• February 1989 -- Sąjudis declares Lithuanian ‘independence’, and that Lithuania had been forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union
• May 1989 -- Sajudis proclaims Lithuanian ‘sovereignty’; and declares that Lithuania's incorporation into the Soviet Union was illegal
• 23 August 1989 -- the “Baltic Way”: mass protest of two million people, linking hands in a ‘human chain’, of 650 kilometres: from Vilnius (Lithuania) to Riga (Latvia) to Tallinn (Estonia)
  
• 9 November 1989 -- ‘fall’ of the Berlin Wall
• December 1989 -- the Communist Party of Lithuania secedes from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the 20th Communist Congress
• 11-13 January 1990 -- one-half of Vilnius’ 600,000 population demonstrate for pro-independence, to ‘welcome’ visiting Soviet President Gorbechev

In January 1990, just a few days after the dramatic events
at the 20th Communist Congress, Mikhail Gorbachev came to
Vilnius for a final attempt to convince Brazauskas
to change his mind, but in vain.

• 7 February 1990 --  the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union agrees to give up its monopoly of power; during the next several weeks, the 15 constituent republics of the USSR hold their first competitive elections
• 24 February 1990 -- Sajudis wins 106 of 141 seats in the Lithuanian parliament; the Communist Party of Lithuania wins 23 seats
  
• 4 March 1990 -- pro-independence Sajudis candidates win an overall majority in the first free elections held in Lithuania since 1940
• 11 March 1990 -- the ‘Supreme Soviet’ (i.e., soon to become the ‘Supreme Council’, which later becomes the parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania unanimously declares the ‘restoration’ of Lithuania’s independence
• 30 March 1990 -- the Estonian Supreme Council declares Soviet power in the Estonian SSR since 1940 to have been illegal, and begins a process to re-establish Estonia as an independent state
• 17 April 1990 -- Moscow imposes economic blockade on Lithuania
• 4 May 1990  -- the Latvian Supreme Council begins the process of restoration of independence of the Latvian SSR, by voting to stipulate a transitional period to complete independence
• 13 January 1991 -- Soviet tanks and troops attempt to storm the parliament and the only television-station broadcasting tower; 14 dead and hundreds injured:  all unarmed civilians
• 12 February 1991 -- Iceland is the first country to recognize the new (i.e., re-established) Republic of Lithuania
• 31 July 1991 -- Soviet special agents kill 7 Lithuanian border guards and policemen (at the Lithuania-Belarus border station)
  
• 21 August 1991 -- failure of the Moscow putsch/coup (since January) to remove Gorbechev
• 21 August 1991 -- Lenin’s statue is removed from the Vilnius square that faces the KGB building
• 29 August 1991 -- Sweden is first western country to open an embassy in Vilnius
• 2 September 1991 -- the United Nations and the USA recognize Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
• 6 September 1991 -- the USSR recognizes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
• 17 September 1991 -- Lithuania joins the United Nations
•  8 December 1991 -- the leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian republics signed the Belavezha Accords, declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replacing it with the CIS (i.e., ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’)
• 12 December 1991 -- the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR formally ratifies the Belavezha Accords, approving Russia's secession from the USSR, and denounces the 1922 Treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union
• 25 December 1991 -- President Gorbachev resigns as president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct, and ceding all the powers still vested in it to the president of Russia (i.e., Yeltsin); that night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin
• 26 December 1991 -- the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and dissolved itself 
• 31 December 1991 -- all official Soviet institutions cease operations
• 31 August 1993 -- the last Russian soldier leaves Lithuania
• March 2004 -- Lithuania joins NATO
• May 2004 -- Lithuania becomes a member of the European Union