"Few saw the signs of Soviet collapse prior to 1991."--The day after the anti-Armenian pogrom in Sumgait, Azerbaijan on my birthday, February 24, 1988, I was telling all my business school classmates "the empire is finished. Give it 2, 3, maybe 4 years. But, with the nationalism genie out of the bottle, breakup is coming."
The Springtime of People's revolutions of 1848 also began in Paris on my birthday. Putin began his downfall on my birthday last year. If you're an authoritarian in power, don't mess with February 24.