News Brief: Fall of Berlin Wall Anniversary

Kaitlyn Krikorian, VOX Reporter

Remembering the end of the Cold War: twenty-five years ago this month, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union governments, Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev met to discuss ending the forty-five-year old Cold War between the countries. This historic meeting at Malta came just a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. The Wall, put up overnight by East Germany in 1961, was the barrier between Eastern and Western Germany. Its demise in November of 1989 gave new hope for the end of the Cold War. Germany reunited the next year.

Berlin-Wall-baby national archive
The Berlin Wall was just barbed wire at first. The baby in the picture is being handed over to its father who happened to be on the west side of the wall when the barbed wire went up overnight in 1961. The photo is from the National Archive at www.archives.gov