The standoff over Russian nuclear missiles installed in Cuba, at the doorstep of the U.S., marked the coldest period of USSR-American relations in the Cold War. A gradual thawing began thereafter. A landmark arms reduction treaty (Salt II) was agreed to in 1979, and another one (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty) was agreed upon eight years after, as the Soviet Union began to gradually lose clout. Rather than suppress dissent, Mikhail Gorbachev began to answer some of their calls, and make overtures to Washington for a meeting.

On this day, November 3, in 1989. mere weeks after the “fall” of the Berlin Wall, newly-elected President George H.W. Bush met Gorbachev in Malta, where the two jointly announced the Cold War was at an end.

Whether that was true or changed anything in practice is debatable. While Gorbachev announced from Matla “The world is leaving one epoch and entering another. We are at the beginning of a long road to a lasting, peaceful era,” little was agreed to at the meeting itself. The two leaders met again the following year, and came to a series of agreements further demilitarizing Europe, but this would be Gorbachev’s last hurrah: he was forced out of office in December of 1991.