58 years ago today, August 13th 1961, the first border fences were erected around the border of West Berlin, in what would quickly become the Berlin Wall. So what were the events leading up to 1961?

(Reuters) - Following are key facts about the Berlin Wall, which was erected beginning in the early hours of August 13, 1961 and breached on November 9, 1989. WHY DID EAST GERMANY NEED A WALL? -- ...

As we know, they failed. Spectacularly. Capitalism may have seemed on the retreat in 1961, but the Berlin Wall, built to secure the communist system, planted the seeds of its own destruction. It is ...

In 1987, celebrating the 750th anniversary of its founding, the two sides of Berlin — the capitalist West and the socialist East — spent the year competing to see who could showcase the best cultural, ...