It’s MONDAY, kids.

On this day in 1989, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was re-opened. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl walked through the gate and was greeted by East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow. West Germans and West Berliners were allowed visa-free travel starting 23 December.

The Berlin Wall, officially the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic . Construction of the Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall’s construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.

The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer an East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.