The power of a single sledgehammer, 12 November, 1989 © John Gaps / AP A man hammers away at the Berlin Wall on 12 November, 1989, as the border barrier between East and West Germany is torn down after 28 years, symbolically ending the Cold War.
On 9 November 1989, three days before this photograph was taken, the East German government amid some confusion announced that anyone wishing to visit the West would be granted a visa. Ecstatic crowds surged at the Berlin Wall and guards were left with no choice (other than massacre) but to open the various gates and checkpoints. This effectively was the Fall of the Berlin Wall (though it was days later when the actual demolition of the Wall began), and it ended almost thirty years of division between East and West Berlin. The wall was constructed on 13 August, 1961 and became increasingly fortified, stretching across an 860-mile (1,380-kilometre) border.
