The Berlin Wall opens and Berliners start tearing it down
The border opened partly by accident: an East German spokesman told reporters the new travel rules applied "immediately, without delay".
Around the same time
- The Cold War is still on — but not for much longer.
- Nintendo's Game Boy went on sale this year.
- Earlier this year, protesters filled Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
- This year, Tim Berners-Lee proposed what would become the World Wide Web.
- Germany will be reunified less than a year later.