The Berlin Wall

When Americans tell the story of the Revolutionary War, the focus usually falls on Washington, Jefferson, and the battles fought in the thirteen colonies. Yet independence was also won through foreign support. Some of it, in France's case, was quite overt. Spain also supported th ...  Show more

It is soft, common, and something most people wear almost every day. Yet behind this humble fabric lies one of the most dramatic stories in human history. Cotton connected ancient civilizations, built global trade networks, fueled the Industrial Revolution, enriched empires, and ...  Show more

On the border between the Western world and the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War. Starting out as a simple barbed wire fence, it would grow in scale and complexity to become a 27-mile concrete edifice, incorporating watchtowers, trenches, electric fences ...  Show more

The Berlin Wall divided a country and a city, but it had a purpose. Learn more about its history and how JFK and Barack Obama fit into the picture in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

60 years ago this month, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) began building a barrier that divided the city of Berlin. It stood until 1989 and came to symbolise the front line of the Cold War. Iain MacGregor, author of "Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall ...  Show more

The immeasurably famous Irving Berlin seems like the perfect example of a U.S. immigrant success story. But reality is complicated and imperfect, and so was Berlin’s music-filled life.

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