The end of the Cold War By the beginning of the 1980s, the Soviet Union faced several challenges. The taking down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 kick-started the fall of the Soviet Union.

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.

MOSCOW (AP) — 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 ...