dec 16, 1989 - Romanian Revolution

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Nicolae Ceausescu was powerful and brutal ruler for 21 years, who created a secret police and the largest network of spies in Eastern Europe, he was very brutal.

In 1981 Ceaușescu began an austerity programme designed to enable Romania to liquidate its entire national debt ($10 billion). To achieve this, many basic goods—including gas, heat and food—were rationed, which drastically reduced the standard of living and increased malnutrition. The infant mortality rate also grew to be the highest in Europe.

The secret police, Securitate, had become so omnipresent that it made Romania essentially a police state. Free speech was limited and opinions that did not favour the Communist Party were forbidden. The large numbers of Securitate informers made organised dissent nearly impossible. The regime deliberately played on this sense that everyone was being watched to make it easier to bend the people to the Party's will.

On the morning of 21 December, Ceaușescu addressed an assembly of approximately 100,000 people to condemn the uprising in Timișoara. Party officials took great pains to make it appear that Ceaușescu was still immensely popular.

When Ceausescu was giving a speech to over 100,000 workers. About two minutes into the speech, some in the crowd actually began to jeer, boo, whistle and yell insults at him, a reaction unthinkable for most of his rule. Workers from a Bucharest power plant started chanting "Ti-mi-șoa-ra! Ti-mi-șoa-ra!", which was soon picked up by others in the crowd. In response, Ceaușescu raised his right hand in hopes of silencing the crowd; his stunned expression remains one of the defining moments of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe.

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