November 9th marks the 20 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a wall which for 28 years was the symbol of Europe's division into two political and military blocks.

 

 

 

 

On November 9th 1989 thousands of Berlin's inhabitants tore down the wall abolishing the existing zones of east and west Berlin. The fall of the wall became a symbolic date of the end of the communist rule in central and eastern Europe. It was a crowning of the events which started in Poland in 1980 in the Gdansk shipyard.

 

 

Setting up the wall in August 1961 the authorities of the German Democratic republic aimed at putting an end to the massive wave of escapes from the east to west Berlin. The wall was to be an 'anti fascist rampart against the imperialist West.'

 

 

The wall had from the start evoked huge protests in the world. In 1961 John F. Kennedy spoke of West Berlin as a symbol of freedom in the world threatened by Cold war, while in 1987 , during his visit to Berlin president Ronald Reagan appealed to Soviet leader Michail Gorbachov to put an end to the division.

 

 

Leading  figures from the era that ushered in the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, such as ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Walesa, who led anti-communist protests in Poland at the head of the Solidarity trade union, take part in commemorative events around the once-divided capital today.

 

 

The city marks the anniversary with various events, the most spectacular being the toppling of 1,000 brightly coloured dominoes that were being erected on along a 1.5 kilometer stretch of the Cold War barrier's original path.

 

 

The blocks are set to topple, after a push from Lech Walesa symbolizing the sequence of events which began in Poland and led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, marking the end of the Soviet bloc's rule in eastern Europe.