The Fall of the Berlin Wall

By the late 1980s, East Germany was cracking under the pressure of economic failure and popular frustration. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced bold reforms encouraging openness and political change, and East Germans were paying close attention. In September 1989, peaceful protests began gathering every Monday in the city of Leipzig. Week by week, the crowds grew, demanding freedom of movement and eventually full reunification with the West.

Then came the moment that no one planned. On November 9, 1989, a government spokesman named Günter Schabowski read out a policy change at a live press conference and, when asked when it took effect, said simply: immediately. He hadn't been fully briefed. Within hours, thousands of East Berliners flooded the border crossings. Guards, with no orders to stop them, stepped aside.

People climbed the Wall. They embraced strangers on the other side. They hammered off chunks of concrete as souvenirs. The whole world watched in disbelief.

German reunification followed less than a year later, on October 3, 1990. The souvenir chunks, it turns out, are now worth a small fortune.