Top 10 Protest Symbols

Tear Down This Wall

Ever since the wall separating East and West Berlin was constructed in 1961, it was a symbol of the postwar rift between East and West Germany and the great power struggle of the Cold War. Yet on Nov. 9, 1989, a moment came that shaped Europe's history: East Germany announced that it would open borders with the West. In the celebration that ensued, tens of thousands poured across the boundary and began to dance and chisel away the wall — tearing down 28 years of deadly separation and ushering in a new era. The change would later come to represent the end of the Cold War and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. The following October, Germany officially became one nation again.

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