By: HISTORY.com Editors

1986

Soviet-U.S. arms control talks break down over President Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative

Published: November 13, 2009Last Updated: February 18, 2025

Following up on their successful November 1985 summit meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, to continue discussions about curbing their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. Just when it appears that agreement might be reached, the talks fall apart amid accusations and recriminations, and U.S.-Soviet relations take a giant step backwards.

The sticking point arose when Gorbachev requested that the talks concerning the missiles be expanded to include limitations on America’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Referred to as the “Star Wars” initiative by opponents, SDI was one of Reagan’s pet projects. A multi-billion-dollar program, SDI was supposed to use space technology to provide a “shield” from nuclear attacks.

Not surprisingly, Reagan refused to consider Gorbachev’s suggestion, and the talks ended with no agreement in hand. Reagan charged the Soviet leader with bad faith in trying to expand the parameters of the talks. Back in the Soviet Union, Gorbachev reported that Reagan seemed to be lying about his desire for serious negotiations concerning arms limitations. Talks on the missile issue did not resume until December 1987, when the two leaders met for a third summit in Washington, and Gorbachev dropped his insistence on including SDI in the negotiations.

Why Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ Defense Plan Remained Science Fiction

Reagan said he wanted to avoid nuclear Armageddon, critics called the Strategic Defense Initiative far-fetched and expensive.

By: Lesley Kennedy

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on October 12th

1492

Columbus reaches the “New World”

After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus touches down in the Bahamas, believing he's made it to East Asia.

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1786

Thomas Jefferson composes an extraordinary romantic letter

On October 12, 1786, a lovesick Thomas Jefferson composes a romantic and introspective letter to a woman named Maria Cosway. Early in 1786, widower Thomas Jefferson met Maria Cosway in Paris while he was serving as the U.S. minister to France. Cosway was born to English parents in Italy and, by the time she met […]

2:50m read

1810

The origin of Oktoberfest: a Bavarian royal wedding

The traditional German festival known as Oktoberfest begins on October 12, 1810, when Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, marries Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

0:48m read

1870

Robert E. Lee dies

General Robert Edward Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, dies at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He was 63 years old. Lee was born to Henry Lee and Ann Carter Lee at Stratford Hall, Virginia, in 1807. His father served in the American Revolution under George Washington and was later a […]

1915

British nurse Edith Cavell executed

On the morning of October 12, 1915, the 49-year-old British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium. Before World War I began in 1914, Cavell served for a number of years as the matron of a nurse training school in Brussels. After the city was captured and occupied by […]

1:34m read

1918

Fire rages in Minnesota

A massive forest fire rages through Minnesota on October 12, 1918, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands homeless. The fire burned at least 1,500 square miles. The fire, known as the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire because that is where the damage was worst, began at rail lines near Sturgeon Lake. This region of Minnesota, southwest […]

1940

Silent-film star Tom Mix dies in Arizona car wreck

On October 12, 1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. Today, visitors to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue of […]

2:04m read

1945

Conscientious objector awarded Medal of Honor

Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, is presented the Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a combat medic, the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the nation’s highest military award. When called on by his country to fight in World War II, Doss, a dedicated pacifist, registered as a […]

0:40m read

1960

Nikita Khrushchev allegedly brandishes his shoe at the United Nations

In one of the most surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev pounds his fist on the table, and according to some reports, removes his shoe and threatens to pound a table with it in protest against a speech critical of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe. During a debate over […]

1964

USSR leads the space race

The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1 into orbit around Earth, with cosmonauts Vladamir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov, and Boris Yegorov aboard. Voskhod 1 was the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew, and the two-day mission was also the first flight performed without space suits. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. space program […]

0:34m read

1972

Racial violence breaks out aboard U.S. Navy ships

Racial violence flares aboard U.S. Navy ships on October 12, 1972. Forty six sailors are injured in a race riot involving more than 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk en route to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. The incident broke out when a Black sailor was summoned for […]

1:36m read

1997

John Denver dies in an aircraft accident

On October 12, 1997, songwriter, actor and humanitarian John Denver dies when his experimental amateur aircraft crashes into Monterey Bay on the California coast. To those who bought records like “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by the millions in the 1970s, John Denver was much more than just a great songwriter […]

2:12m read

1998

Matthew Shepard, victim of anti-gay hate crime, dies

University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard dies after a vicious anti-gay attack. After meeting Shepard in a Laramie, Wyoming, gay bar, The Fireside Lounge, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney lured him to the parking lot, where he was beaten and robbed. The two attackers then took Shepard, 21 years old and weighing just over 100 […]

1:42m read

2000

USS Cole attacked by terrorists

At 12:15 p.m. local time, a motorized rubber dinghy loaded with explosives blows a 40-by-40-foot hole in the port side of the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer that was refueling at Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and 38 wounded in the attack, which was carried out by two suicide terrorists alleged to be […]

1:52m read

2002

Terrorists kill 202 in Bali

On October 12, 2002, three bombings shatter the peace in the town of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The blasts, the work of militant Islamist terrorists, left 202 people dead and more than 200 others injured, many with severe burns. The attacks shocked residents and those familiar with the mostly Hindu island, long […]

1:18m read

2007

Al Gore wins Nobel Prize in the wake of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

On October 12, 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a United Nation’s panel are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to increase public knowledge about man-made climate change.

1:58m read

Cold War

22 videos

Cold War

The 1946 Law That Put America’s Atomic Bombs Under Civilian Control

The U.S. faced an unprecedented question after World War II: Should civilians or the military oversee its nuclear arsenal?

Cold War

Which Countries Were Involved in the Vietnam War?

How eight countries got bogged down in the Vietnam War's Cold War proxy battle.

Cold War

Did Perestroika Play a Role in the Fall of the Soviet Union?

Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost as well-intentioned reforms to transform the Soviet Union.

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