On June 12, 1987, in one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet Leader Mikhail
Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the
repressive Communist era in a divided Germany.

The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 by East Germany with Soviet
backing, physically and ideologically divided East and West
Berlin.

Two years later, on November 9, 1989, joyful East and West
Germans did break down the infamous barrier between East
and West Berlin. Germany was officially reunited on October
3, 1990.

SANDY KOZEL

TIM MAGUIRE

Complicated and tension-filled negotiations between the United
States and the Soviet Union finally result in a plan to end the two
-week-old Cuban Missile Crisis. A frightening period in which
nuclear holocaust seemed imminent began to come to an end.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on
Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers the following
day into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to
take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army.