The fall of the Berlin Wall
A misread press conference opens the border, and the Eastern bloc unravels in months.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Hungary opens its border in the summer of 1989, mass demonstrations spread through East Germany, and on 9 November a spokesman announces new travel rules and, asked when they apply, says immediately — which was not the plan. Crowds go to the checkpoints and the guards let them through. Within a year Germany is reunified, and within two the Soviet Union has dissolved.