The Berlin Wall was erected in the night of August 13, 1961.

It was a weekend and most Berliners slept while the East German government begun to close the border. In the early morning of that Sunday most of the first work was done: the border to West Berlin was closed. The East German troops had begun to tear up streets and to install barbed wire entanglement and fences through Berlin.

The first concrete elements and large square blocks were used first on August 15, 1961. Within the next months the first generation of the Berlin Wall was build up: a wall consisting of concrete elements and square blocks.

A second Wall was built in June 1962 in order to prevent from escaping to the West.

The first Wall was improved during the next years and it's difficult to distinguish between the first and the second generation of the Wall.

These two first generations were removed by the third generation beginning about 1965. The third generation of Wall consisted of concrete slabs between steel girder and concrete posts with a concrete sewage pipe on top of the Wall.

From the year 1975 the third generation of Wall was replaced by the fourth generation. New concrete segments were used which were easy to build up and were more resistant to breakthroughs and to environmental pollutions.

Persons succeeded in passing the Wall: ca. 5000

Persons arrested in the border area: ca. 3200

Persons killed on the Berlin Wall: 192

Persons injured by shooting: ca. 200

"There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future.

Let them come to Berlin."

--President John F. Kennedy, Berlin, Germany, June 26, 1963

The cold war is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following World War II. It was a series of confrontations and tests of wills between the non-Communist states, led by the United States and Great Britain, and the Communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, that lasted 45 years and, at one point, drew the world to the brink of nuclear war.

In August 1961 the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall to stop the mass exodus of people fleeing Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin and the non-Communist world. The wall was a mass of concrete, barbed wire, and stone that cut into the heart of the city, separating families and friends. For 28 years, it stood as a grim symbol of the gulf between the Communist East and the non-Communist West. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, signaling the end of the cold war.

National Archives, John F. Kennedy Library (NLK-29248)

On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech that electrified an adoring crowd gathered in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. As he paid tribute to the spirit of Berliners and to their quest for freedom, the crowd roared with approval upon hearing the President's dramatic pronouncement, "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner).

October 4, 1957 (40 years ago):

The Russians launched the first artificial satellite from the Baikonurcosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which demonstrated the technological superiority of Communism (actually more of a propaganda pain for the US). They equipped the Sputnik with transmitters to broadcast on frequencies at 20 and 40 MHz so everyone will know it's up there.

The United States was shocked. Senator Lyndon Johnson said the Russians have jumped way ahead of us in the conquest of space. "Soon, they will be dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses!*" [*from a movie that dramatized the emotional impact of that day]. Everyone in the United States were constantly reminded that the Russians were well on the way in conquering space and newspaper headlines, "REDS ORBIT ARTIFICIAL MOON" and "SOVIET SATELLITE CIRCLES GLOBE EVERY 90 MINUTES".

Reactions by Americans:

  • Many people did not know how to think of a satellite in orbit. It was too mysterious for them, "What is a 184 pound object in orbit?" "Are they looking down at us?"
  • Engineering colleges were flooded with new students the following quarter. It was as if everyone was "joining the army" to take on the Russians in the New Frontier (the government also provided a lot of funds for engineering schools to fuel new interests in engineering).
  • Everyone on Johnston Island in the Pacific was issued sidearms to carry at all times. Johnston Island is so small it only has room for a runway and a hanger for airplanes.
  • Students at Case Institute immediately became "Rocket Scientists" and stayed up many late nights discussing various methods of space travel.
  • Jim Dawsons, science writer for the Star Tribune, wrote about how his third grade teacher was very nervous at the time. His school at Omaha, Neb., was just a few miles from the Air Force's Strategic Air Command headquarters. A fleet of F-100 fighters appeared in the sky coming right for the school. "MiGs!" the teacher shrieked. "MiGs!" She ran, hysterical, from the classroom, convinced they were about to be nuked by Russian fighter jets. The kids, mostly Air Force brats, ran to the windows to admire the F-100s, the coolest jet of its day.
  • Politicians and editorialists began attacking the U.S. educational system for having fallen behind Soviet schools in training people in the sciences and other fields.
  • Former President Harry Truman was moved to comment, charging the "persecution" of prominent U.S. scientists by Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the early 1950s had been a setback to the nation's development of satellites and rockets.
  • Ross Perot became inspired by the Sputnik to create an electronics dynasty.
  • After observing Sputnik, seven-year-old Franklin Chang-Dìaz of Costa Rica became infatuated with space travel and eventually became a NASA astronaut.
  • Tom A. posted on the newsgroup about an American entrepreneur had a "Sputnik" gumball for sale at the local candy store. It was blue and had protrusions sticking out of it to simulate Sputnik's antenna, and it was delicious.

President Dwight Eisenhower was surprised but not as anxious as everyone else. He had photographs of the Russian launch facilities that were obtained from U2 flights over Soviet territory the United States was conducting since 1956. So immediately after the Sputnik launch President Eisenhower did not see it as an immediate military threat and he tried to lessen the political impact. But Eisenhower could not disclose intelligence gathered by the U2 flights, and he was not successful in damping the political impact.

Thus the "Missile Gap" argument was born.

The Sputnik launch occurred back in the days when the Pentium had vacuum tubes, and during this period the Americans and the Russians regarded each other as enemies (also known as the "Cold War"). They built massive armies, navies, and air forces and were prepared to engage in global war at a moments notice. American military manuals regarded the Russians as "The Threat," and Soviet government went as far as training many non-military citizens on use of small arms to prepare for an invasion from "The Imperialists."

The United States tried to gain a foothold on the High Ground with the satellite Vanguard but it exploded on the launch pad and everyone laughed at the U.S. silly; some called it the "Kaputnik." And it wasn't as bad as just a launch failure, the vanguard satellite only the size of a grapefruit. The Sputnik 1 was 184 pounds and the Russians launched the previous month Sputnik 2, which was 1100 pounds and carried a live dog, Laika. There were lots of finger pointing, yelling, but also some had said that Sputnik didn't pose an immediate military threat. Although the same vehicle that can put a satellite into orbit can also vault a nuclear bomb across continents, nobody had solved the problem of shielding a satellite, or a warhead, during atmosphere re-entry. But it was that blasted "beep, beep, beep" every 90 minutes reminding the U.S., "Razzzzzz, we beat you!"

To hear the sounds of Sputnik, Candice Rich of the pop music webpage has a wav file at

Vanguard Sidenote:

•Briefly, (very briefly), they weren't trying to beat the Russians, only trying to launch one and only one satellite. They also wanted to conduct one experiment successfully sometime during the International Geophysical Year (the 18-month "year" designated by scientists as January 1957 to July 1958). This was in the hot time of the Cold War, when both the Soviets and the US were trying to develop ICBMs and IRBMs, and Vanguard had NO military priority. The Vanguard team had to struggle and fight for money, range time at the Cape, buying equipment, etc. etc. The entire program was just 14 launch vehicles, and not all of those were "satellite launch vehicles." The big collapse of TV-3 in December 57 was a Test Vehicle, and the "grapefruit" satellite in its nosecone was kind of an afterthought: "Gee, if all the three stages work perfectly, as a bonus we could put a small satellite into orbit. So let's make a small one and try it." TV-3 was the FIRST attempt to launch the entire "stack." (Later, in the Apollo era, this kind of test came to be known honorably as "all-up systems engineering test").

•The Vanguard I satellite, launched successfully on March 17, 1958 is now the oldest manufactured object in orbit. While it hasn't be actively transmitting for a good many years, it is in a highly stable orbit and will probably remain there for several hundred more years.

However, a "war" on and the U.S. had to get SOMETHING in orbit and soon. Werner Von Braun and his rocket team finally got permission to launch the Explorer satellite and they successfully launch it on January 31, 1958. Explorer 1, a scientific satellite, used a rocket that had been developed to test guided missile components (also the same rocket later used as a IRBM placed in Turkey and aimed towards the Soviet Union). Explorer 1 carried an instrument package that provided evidence that the Earth is surrounded by intense bands of radiation, now called the Van Allen radiation belts.

The U.S. could have put the first satellite in orbit in 1956 with a Jupiter rocket that reached 700 miles altitude and just 1000 mph short of orbital speed. However, those working with the launch vehicle were ordered to make sure the third stage was a dummy. President Eisenhower was nervous about the U2 flights over the Soviet Union and a U2 being shot down. That was one of the reasons he was reluctant to place a satellite in orbit because then it would have been another American object passing over the Soviet Union. Others in top government didn't want to embarrass anyone by putting the first satellite in orbit. There were other conflicts as well. The three U.S. military services (Army, Navy, Air Force) each had their preference of how to deploy space vehicles thus wasted much time arguing among themselves [the Marines probably said it didn't matter which service leads the conquest of space, but it couldn't be done without an amphibious landing! Maybe this is why John Glenn was the most popular among the first astronauts].

In aAssociated Press article by Greg Myre, Russian scientist ArkadyOstashev said, "Those were great days. It was a lot of fun." Ostashev was part of a handpicked team and he was responsible for testing the rockets used for launching Sputnik. Sergei Korolev, father of the Soviet space program, told Ostashev and his colleagues after their triumph, "Congratulations, the road to the stars is now open." Although the Baikonur launch complex was so isolated that Ostashev and his colleagues, desperate for entertainment, would catch scorpions, put them in glass jars and watch them fight to the death.

By: Kurt Wiersma and Ben Larson

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Introduction

An Overview of The Crisis

"Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread ... and we weren't counting days or hours, but minutes."

-Soviet General and Army Chief of Operations, Anatoly Gribkov

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was averted.

In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in the arms race. Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched against Europe but U.S. missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. In May 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. A deployment in Cuba would double the Soviet strategic arsenal and provide a real deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Fidel Castro was looking for a way to defend his island nation from an attack by the U.S. Ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 Castro felt a second attack was inevitable. Consequently, he approved of Khrushchev's plan to place missiles on the island. In the summer of 1962 the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly to build its missile installations in Cuba.

For the United States, the crisis began on October 15, 1962 when reconnaissance photographs revealed Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba. Early the next day, President John Kennedy was informed of the missile installations. Kennedy immediately organized the EX-COMM, a group of his twelve most important advisors to handle the crisis. After seven days of guarded and intense debate within the upper echelons of government, Kennedy concluded to impose a naval quarantine around Cuba. He wished to prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island. On October 22, Kennedy announced the discovery of the missile installations to the public and his decision to quarantine the island. He also proclaimed that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union and demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba.

During the public phase of the Crisis, tensions began to build on both sides. Kennedy eventually ordered low-level reconnaissance missions once every two hours. On the 25th Kennedy pulled the quarantine line back and raised military readiness to DEFCON 2. Then on the 26th EX-COMM heard from Khrushchev in an impassioned letter. He proposed removing Soviet missiles and personnel if the U.S. would guarantee not to invade Cuba. October 27 was the worst day of the crisis. A U-2 was shot down over Cuba and EX-COMM received a second letter from Khrushchev demanding the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy suggested ignoring the second letter and contacted Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to tell him of the U.S. agreement with the first.

Tensions finally began to ease on October 28 when Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and return the missiles to the Soviet Union, expressing his trust that the United States would not invade Cuba. Further negotiations were held to implement the October 28 agreement, including a United States demand that Soviet light bombers be removed from Cuba, and specifying the exact form and conditions of United States assurances not to invade Cuba.