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Tear down this wall!

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Also known as Ronald Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech, Brandenburg Gate Speech, Berlin Wall Speech, Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany

speech delivered by President Ronald Reagan of the USA in West Berlin in June 1987

Key facts

Date
June 12, 1987 ( 1987-06-12 )
Venue
Near the Brandenburg Gate at the presently named Platz des 18. März
Location
West Berlin
Participants
Ronald Reagan

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
oration
Main subject
Berlin Wall
Location
West Berlin
Image
Gedenktafel Straße des 17 Juni (Tierg) Ronald Reagan.jpg
Show 5 more facts
title
Tear down this wall!
Commons category
1987 Ronald Reagan speech in Berlin
point in time
1987-06-12
language of work or name
English language
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, then-United States president Ronald Reagan delivered a speech commonly known by a key line from the middle part: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan called for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961.

The following day, The New York Times carried Reagan’s picture on the front page, below the title "Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall". In the post-Cold War era, it was often seen as one of the most memorable performances of an American president in Berlin after John F. Kennedy's 1963 speech "Ich bin ein Berliner". Reagan's speech was written by Peter Robinson.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Tear down this wall!” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.