The threat of nuclear annihilation weighed heavily on the majority of the global population until 1991, when the Soviet Union was finally dissolved, freeing several nations from the grasp of the ...

MOSCOW -- Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died Thursday in Moscow.

CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: In the late 1970s, Central Asia could seem like just another stagnating Soviet backwater. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: (Non-English language ...