A dark era in world history came to end on this date in 1989 when the wall that had imprisoned millions of East Germans for decades crumbled into history. At long last the Berlin Wall was opened as the winds of change (to steal the famous phrase of Harold Macmillan’s) swept through Europe as the Soviet Union and communist Warsaw Pact nations teetered on the edge of collapse. A few months later, representatives of the four Allied powers – Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet – would meet on the margins of a summit in Ottawa and begin the peaceful transition to a united Germany. As a thank-you to Canada and our government led by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney – ably assisted by his Foreign Minister Joe Clark at the Ottawa Conference – would present our nation with a piece of the Berlin Wall in gratitude. It remains on display at the Canadian War Museum, a haunting reminder of the Cold War. caption id="attachment_592511" align="alignleft" width="611" A man celebrates on the Berlin wall on November 12, 1989/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.