THIS MONTH, Berlin will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the city’s infamous wall.
Made of stark concrete and barbed wire, and dotted with watchtowers, it divided the heart of Berlin into eastern and western sectors. Hundreds died there trying to cross into freedom.
Berlin became a city early in the 14th century, when two feudal villages merged. Unified for hundreds of years, its division into eastern Soviet and western Allied zones grew out of the devastation of World War II.
Berlin was divided for just over 44 years, until the collapse of East Germany (another arbitrary relic of the cold war) in November 1989.
Reunification was greeted with acclaim, and reference to East Berlin and East Germany was relegated to historical allusion.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Jerusalem has existed for as long as 5,000 years. King David is said to have made the city his capital 3,000 years ago. The New Testament describes Jesus in Jerusalem and the existence of the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago.
Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem by Roman legionnaires early in the first century. Many of his fellow Jews were forcibly expelled, and, over the subsequent two millennia, Jerusalem was continuously ruled by a variety of outside conquerors, including the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who built the Old City’s famous walls.