"Tear down this wall!" was the challenge issued by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin. Reagan challenged Gorbachev, who was then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear it down as an emblem of Gorbachev's desire to increase freedom in the Eastern Bloc through glasnost ("transparency") and perestroika ("restructuring") .
Read more about Tear Down This Wall!: Background, The Speech, Response and Legacy
Famous quotes containing the word tear:
“Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)