03/11 – Mikhail Gorbachev’s Election

Gorbachev (R) meeting with American president George H. W. Bush in 1991. (The Times of Israel) On this day in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Soviet Union (USSR). A former tractor driver, Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in his youth and attained a law degree during the Khrushchev Thaw of the…