No surprise for me. I predicted the fall of the USSR after the anti-Armenian pogrom in Sumgait, Azerbaijan on my birthday February 24, 1988--and told every MBA classmate who'd listen that the empire was doomed because the nationalism genie was now out of the bottle.

That summer after working in Italy for a summer job, I was camping on Lake Balaton, Hungary and saw the flood of Ossies in their Trabis waiting to get into Austria. There I talked to the Romanian refugee boyfriend of the campground's owners' daughter. I agreed when he said the whole system would crash and burn within a couple of years.

I traveled through Yugoslavia in the summers of 1980 and 1986, I could feel the cracks in the system in the second summer that weren't evident in the first. Much more openly expressed race hatred against Muslims--"they all have 10 kids and we pay for them"--and much more open Serbian nationalism.

Another birthday hinge moment: the failed Franquista coup of 23-24 February 1981 while I was in Barcelona with a UCLA research grant to study the Spanish Civil War. Juan Carlos' "over my dead body" speech at 1 am was the best possible birthday gift.

Those stories are in here--https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/history-is-fascinating-but-stay-out-of-the-way-part-two-95e680efb92e--

On February 14, 2022 I forecast that Putin would go to war, but not that he'd do it on my birthday.

Best from sunny Jurmala.