94 years ago today, March 2, 1931 (January 14, 1931 in the lunar calendar), Soviet leader Mihail Gorbachev was born. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (1931.3.2-) was born near Stavropol, southern Russia. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952 and obtained a degree as an agricultural economist in 1966. Minister of Agriculture in 1970. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the following year. In 1974, he was elected as a representative of the Supreme Soviet and chairman of the Executive Committee for Youth Affairs. In 1979, he was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After the death of Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected as the youngest General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Defense Conference of the Soviet Union on May 11, 1985. His policies in office led to the end of the Cold War, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, but his reform policies also led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He served as president of the Soviet Union in 1990. After the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States on December 25, 1991, he announced his resignation and the Soviet Union officially disintegrated.