Short answers, pulled from the story.
Mikhail Gorbachev was born on the 2nd of March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye. He grew up in the North Caucasus region where his family suffered losses during the Great Famine of 1930 to 1933 and the Great Purge.
Mikhail Gorbachev implemented the policies of glasnost to improve freedom of speech and perestroika to decentralize economic decision-making. He also withdrew troops from the Soviet-Afghan War and declined to intervene militarily when Warsaw Pact countries abandoned Marxist-Leninist governance in 1989.
Mikhail Gorbachev refused to declare a state of emergency during the coup attempt in August 1991 and was kept under house arrest at his dacha in Foros, Crimea. He returned to Moscow two days later and resigned as general secretary after the coup failed.
The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on the 31st of December 1991 after the Supreme Soviet voted the country out of existence. Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as Soviet president on the 25th of December 1991 and vacated the Kremlin by the 29th of December.
Mikhail Gorbachev died at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on the 30th of August 2022. He was ninety-one years old at the time of his death following a severe and prolonged illness.