58 years ago today, August 13th 1961, the first border fences were erected around the border of West Berlin, in what would quickly become the Berlin Wall. So what were the events leading up to 1961?

(Reuters) - Following are key facts about the Berlin Wall, which was erected beginning in the early hours of August 13, 1961 and breached on November 9, 1989. WHY DID EAST GERMANY NEED A WALL? -- ...

On August 13, 1961, Berliners woke up to find their city divided by a wall. On August 13, 1961, Berliners woke up on a Sunday morning to find their city divided by a wall. That day became known as ...

The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 completely separated citizens who had previously been able to travel freely between East and West Germany. Kelly Hignett, a doctor of history, shares the ...

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As we know, they failed. Spectacularly. Capitalism may have seemed on the retreat in 1961, but the Berlin Wall, built to secure the communist system, planted the seeds of its own destruction. It is ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - When Mike Pompeo was posted to Europe as a U.S. soldier in the late 1980s, he patrolled the border that marked the "Iron Curtain" dividing East and West. As he gazed on the ...