Thirty-eight years ago, on August 31, 1980, in the shipping yards of Gdansk, Poland, amidst massive strikes across the country, an agreement was reached between workers and the government. Sounds very benign, almost like a small blip in the course of Poland's history. So why was this agreement so important? Because the Gdansk Agreement allowed for the very existence of Solidarity, meaning it was the first trade union not controlled by the Communist Party. This was a HUGE deal