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Cold War

The famous Checkpoint Charlie crossing point between East and West Berlin, June 1968 (Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall

Setting a trap: East German soldiers construct the Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961. The barrier was an attempt to stop the flood of Germans fleeing from east to west – yet, as scores of audacious escape bids attest, it didn't entirely succeed. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Escape from East Berlin: an audacious bid to tunnel under the Berlin Wall

A man attacks the Berlin Wall with a pickaxe on the night of November 9th, 1989 as news spread rapidly that the East German Government would now start granting exit visas to anyone who wanted to go to the West. The announcement was misinterpreted as meaning the border was now open and East German border guards were unable to stop the rush of people to the Wall. Within hours people were smashing sections of the Wall with their own hand tools and these first cracks in the Wall led to the complete opening of the border within days. (Photo by robert wallis/Corbis via Getty Images)

In pictures: remembering the Berlin Wall 30 years on

It is 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany’s concrete solution to the mass haemorrhaging of its citizens at the height of the Cold War. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

The Berlin Wall: everything you need to know

30th June 1963: Some of the many hundreds of supporters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and the Committee of 100 waiting outside Birch Grove, the country home of British prime minister Harold Macmillan, where he and American president John F Kennedy are having weekend talks. (Photo by Kent Gavin/Keystone/Getty Images)

Peter Hennessy on Britain in transition

Changdeokgung Palace in South Korea

Travel Seoul, South Korea: a modern metropolis rising from ruins

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi

Have nuclear weapons helped to maintain global peace?

Through MK ULtra's experiments, often performed on unwitting test subjects, the CIA hoped to make 'brainwashing' real. (Image by RF CREATIVE/Getty Images)

MK Ultra: the secrets of the CIA’s mind-control programme

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi.

Did the Cold War ever really end?

The president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt and his staff gathered together in New York to find a solution to the economic crisis. 1935. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Icons: the game changers of the 20th century

JFK prepares to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. (Picture by Corbis/Getty Images)

The Library Nuclear nightmare: the Cuban missile crisis

St Basil's Cathdral, Moscow. (Photo by Dreamstime)

The spy who changed the Cold War

Podcast Website large Ian Kershaw

Ian Kershaw on postwar Europe

Podcast Website large Rory Cormac

Britain’s foreign policy secrets

East German leader Willi Stoph greets West German chancellor Willy Brandt at Erfurt. (Getty images)

Cold War summits: David Reynolds and Kristina Spohr explain