On this day in 1985 the Soviet Union’s leadership did something surprising-they elected someone who wasn’t around when the dinosaurs walked the earth as their new leader. Mikhail Gorbachev was only 54. After going through 3 leaders in a short period of time in the 1980’s [Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko} they decided to go with a younger man with different ideas. Little did anyone suspect that when they selected Gorbachev to be their new general secretary that he would end up being the final general secretary that the Soviet Union would ever have. In December 1991 Gorbachev would resign and the Soviet Union was now a part of the ash heap of history.