In 1991 in Los Angeles, a bystander videotaped police officers beating Rodney King, a black man, after a car chase. People in the African-American community had long complained of cases of police brutality. At long last, they had clear evidence — a videotape. But at the trial in state court, the jury acquitted the four officers of using excessive force. A major riot erupted in Los Angeles following the verdict.
A communist government took power at the end of World War Two. ... East Germany was part of the Soviet zone of occupation agreed at the Yalta Conference and in 1945 the Soviets set up a communist regime.
After 36 years in existence, the Warsaw Pact—the military alliance between the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites—comes to an end. The action was yet another sign that the Soviet Union was losing control over its former allies and that the Cold War was falling apart.
