Today marks the 20th anniversary of one of the seminal moments of the 20th century as the Berlin Wall fell. This event marked the beginning of the end for not only the Warsaw Pact but also the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For those readers who were not alive at the time I am not sure if you can fully comprehend the incredulity of the moment. For forty years the East and West had been divided. For myself, for my parents, for my grandparents it was a reality that we had all known and accepted in the same way we today accept that China is ruled by the Communist party.
Indeed perhaps it would be apt to compare the two places and ask you to consider what it would be like today if in a matter of weeks or months the entire Communist system in China collapsed.
For myself I remember watching with stunned awe at the images on television. I was working in an internship at the time and part of my job was to track the newsprint assigned to various stories. I remember the stories on Eastern Europe going from nothing to covering entire sections. Indeed many papers took to publishing a special section each day devoted to the massive rush of events.
And here is one of the people who helped bring about that day.
I think it would be quite interesting for our readers to share their own memories of those amazing times