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A day that changed the course of German history forever: On November 9, 1989 the pressures of revolution brought down the Berlin Wall. This episode of History Stories illustrates how months of protests and mass demonstrations lead up to this fateful day. Archival footage of news coverage of the events as they unfolded is paired with powerful statements from East Berliners as they crossed over to the other side.

Who remembers the Berlin Wall and why it went up? Who remembers that East German guards shot men and women trying to jump the fence? I remember. Unfortunately, the mayor of Tijuana, Mexico played the wall card and chose the wrong wall to talk about.This is the story:Tijuana's mayor took a jab at US migrant policies by recently installing a 3-ton gray concrete slab of the Berlin Wall just feet from America's latest stretch of border wall."May this be a lesson to build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges," reads the inscription on the Cold War relic...

Mexican officials in Tijuana placed a three-ton section of the former Berlin Wall near the U.S. border with a message to “build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges.” The message ignores the stark difference in purpose between the two barriers. During a ceremony in August, Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero and former Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard installed the 12-meter high segment of the fallen Berlin Wall — a wall designed by the former Soviet Union to keep communist-controlled German citizens locked inside and became an icon of the Cold War-era. Guards would frequently use deadly force to...

A Crack in the Great Covid Wall of China We can now see that the fight against Covid lockdowns is global. The official liberal narrative—that opposition to lockdowns was just “Ron Death Santis” and cranky ultra-conservatives in red states—has long since been shot to hell. For freedom-loving Americans, it’s heartening to know that people all over the world want to breathe free and to be free. And it’s even more heartening to know that protests can work. December 1 headline from Reuters tells of modest success in one of the most controlled countries in the world: “China set to loosen...

When I lived in Russia in 1994, the only two places that sold affordable food to go in the entire metropolis were McDonalds and a sandwich chain called ‘Combis’. I learned to say “a BigMac and fries, please” in Russian just as fast as I learned to understand “Attention, the doors are closing” on the long metro journey from the burbs where I lived so get some hot food. McDonalds had opened in Moscow on 31 January 1990, before the USSR was dissolved, and the enormous crowds it drew were taken as emblematic of the power of Western capitalism and...

His cronies trap him behind a brick wall while he sleeps. He rants and raves, then knocks down the wall and is crushed.

Robert Frost’s iconic poem, memorized by generations of schoolchildren, reflects on one man’s choice between two roads that “diverged in a yellow wood.” Frost’s message was that the man’s will affected the course of his entire life. But what if the ‘choice’ was not that of a single soul but great power at war? Who should have the right to make that choice: The political leader or the military leader? The general can see the battle clearer than any politician but often can only see the battle and not the war. The politician may see the full scope of the...

Perhaps President Ronald Reagan’s most famous and influential speech was his “Berlin Wall speech” at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987. It was in this speech (at about 11:45 in the video above) that Reagan made his famous and history-changing demand “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” That statement and speech helped changed the course of history, and there’s even an entire Wikipedia entry for “Tear down this wall” (in addition to an extensive page for the Berlin Wall). According to the Wikipedia entry, “The Berlin Wall speech was also a source of considerable controversy within...

Chapman University officials announced that a piece of the Berlin Wall on display at the California campus was defaced. University spokeswoman Amy Stevens told Campus Reform that the university’s section of the wall was most likely vandalized between July 21 and July 22. Each side of the lower portion of the wall had been covered in brown paint. The paint conceals some of the original graffiti placed on the wall before its fall at the end of the Cold War, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported. "senseless attempt to destroy a priceless piece of history" “Experts from an art restoration firm...

History is ripe for another flipping reform Throughout history, prosperity has been built upon individual freedom and limited government. And now, the global economy has suffered the fastest setback – ever – the first caused by monstrous bureaucratic intrusions. The record includes many economic busts, but the only comparable collapse occurred in London in 1665. Shockingly, the important trade center suffered the Bubonic Plague with some 25 percent of the population dying. Naturally, finance and business collapsed, but not by destructive government restrictions. Diarist Samuel Pepys, recorded on October 16, 1665: “But Lord, how empty the streets are, and melancholy,...

It’s long overdue. A statue of former President Ronald Reagan was unveiled and dedicated on Friday at the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany. The seven-foot statue overlooks the site of the Berlin Wall. In an unforgettable speech for those old enough to remember it, on June 12, 1987, President Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and delivered this demand of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” He was calling for Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall which had separated West and East Berline since 1961. Reagan’s speechwriter, and current Hoover Institution fellow Peter Robinson noted...

BERLIN (AP) — Germany marked the 30th anniversary Saturday of the opening of the Berlin Wall, a pivotal moment in the events that brought down Communism in eastern Europe.

Leaders from Germany and its allies on Saturday commemorated the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, which helped spur the fall of Communism in parts of Europe. Officials from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic attended the ceremony at Bernauer Strasse — a site where part of the wall still stands — before they placed roses in the barrier’s gaps, The Associated Press reports.

On this National Day for the Victims of Communism, we remember the more than 100 million people who have died as a result of communist oppression. Today, we renew our commitment to helping secure for all people a future of peace and prosperity founded on the core tenets of democracy—liberty, justice, and a deep respect for the value of every human life. This year’s National Day for the Victims of Communism coincides with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, determined men and women put President Ronald Reagan’s powerful words into momentous action,...

Seven-foot replica of former president to be inaugurated at U.S. Embassy, overlooking site of Berlin Wall

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will formally unveil a statue of former President Reagan in Berlin, 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell in the city. During his visit in Germany, Pompeo will reveal the statue of Reagan at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, according to a Facebook post from the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The statue will overlook the location where the president gave his speech calling for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall. Pompeo will inaugurate the statue on Friday, the day before the 30th anniversary of the momentous...

Great expectations characterised 1989...The Gorbachev era brought about a frenzy of change, and people witnessed incredible events on a weekly basis: they snatched up newspapers, hung on every word broadcast on TV, and with every passing day they felt more alive and free. By the mid-1990s, nostalgia for the Soviet period started to creep in. The greyness of the Brezhnev era, with its endless queues and empty shops, started to be recalled as a peaceful, prosperous time. And gradually something that had seemed impossible during perestroika, became real: Stalin’s shadow loomed large again. Vladimir Putin’s rise to power came accompanied...

In a wide-ranging television interview, Pope Francis compared President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall to the Berlin Wall that divided communist East Germany from freedom in the West. Among a series of questions posed by correspondent Valentina Alazraki of the Mexican Televisa network, the Pope touched on a range of issues, including President Trump, migration and border security, violence against women, clerical sex abuse, and drug trafficking. Alazraki reminded Pope Francis of the Mass he celebrated in 2015 at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, adding that little had changed since then as witnessed by “heartbreaking images of children...

This meeting is part of the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall... Kissinger (now 94) reflects on the events, personalities, and thinking that characterized the United States and Soviet Union's leadership.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compared President Trump’s border barrier with the Berlin Wall – a Cold War symbol of Communist oppression that divided Germany for nearly three decades.“No matter how you feel about the wall, I think it’s a moral abomination,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a livestream video for her supporters last Friday, according to a report on Fox News.“I think it’s like the Berlin Wall. I think it’s like any other wall designed to separate human beings and block out people who are running away from the humanitarian disasters. I just think it’s wrong.”Twitter users were quick to give Ocasio-Cortez, a...