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On this day – June 12th, 1987
On June 12th, 1987, Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most famous speeches while visiting West Berlin, Germany. At the height of the Cold War period, with the Berlin Wall in the background of his speech, Reagan called to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, imploring him to tear down the wall. The speech continued to further call for arms reductions and advocate for the easing of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Just around two years after Reagan delivered this famous speech, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed.
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On this day in history – May, 20th , 1862
On this day, May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act was signed into action by President Abraham Lincoln. This act worked to foster settlers to move west of the Mississippi River by giving American citizens 160 acres of land if they were willing to pay a small fee and work on the land to improve it. The act opened up a large amount of American land for ownership, leading to about 10 percent of the total land mass of the United States to be privatized by 1934.
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On this day in history – May 12th, 1949
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On this day in history – May 12th, 1949
On May 12th, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted its blockade against West Berlin. Since March 1948, the Soviet Union had blocked the Allies’ road, railway, and water access to the Western sectors of Berlin. Throughout this 11-month period, the United States and British planes had been airlifting supplies to West Berlin and had also been staging a counter-blockade against East Berlin. The success of the US-British airlift and the counter-blockade forced the Soviet Union to abandon the blockade, allowing British and American forces to enter West Germany.
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On this day in history – May, 20th , 1862
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On this day in history – February 24th, 1917
On this day, February 24th, 1917, the United Kingdom first showed an encoded telegram, written by the German Foreign Secretary, to the United States. This telegram that the British had intercepted, now infamously known as the Zimmerman Telegram, contained details proposing an alliance between Mexico and Germany, against the United States and its possible entry into the war. In the telegram, the Germans offered Mexico some territory in the United States in exchange for the alliance and support. This telegram, once released to the public, was one of the ultimate push factors in shifting public opinion in America toward entering World War I.
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On this day in history – February 10th, 1945
On this day, February 11th, 1945, the Yalta Conference between the leaders of the Allied Powers came to an end. At this conference, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill signed the Yalta Agreement, in which they decided to demand a full and complete surrender from Germany, and began to plan their final steps to ending the Second World War and what would take place in the post-war period.
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On this day – November 9th, 1938
On this day, November 9th, 1938, Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, began. This violent event, orchestrated by the Nazi party, targeted Jewish businesses and synagogues for a period of about 48 hours. The result was the complete destruction of many of these businesses and synagogues, and even 91 deaths.
