Today in History, June 12th
On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan told Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Plus Loving v. Virginia and the murder of Medgar Evers.
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June 12 is best known for 1987, when President Ronald Reagan stood near the Berlin Wall and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” The date also saw the Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia ruling in 1967 and the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963.
The big story: Reagan tells Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” (1987)
On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, with the Berlin Wall right behind him. The wall had gone up in August 1961, after an estimated 2.5 million East Germans had slipped west since 1949. For more than 25 years it split the city in two. Reagan addressed his line straight to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who had taken power in 1985 and was pushing reforms known as perestroika and glasnost. Reagan told him to tear down this wall, and he also called for serious talks on cutting arms. Change came faster than almost anyone expected. Soviet reforms and protests inside East Germany kept up the pressure, and on November 9, 1989, Berliners broke through the wall. Germany officially reunified on October 3, 1990.
More events on June 12
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1898 | Filipino rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent from Spain during the Spanish-American War. |
| 1939 | The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, held its first induction ceremony. |
| 1942 | Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday. |
| 1963 | Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. |
| 1964 | Nelson Mandela and seven others were sentenced to life in prison by South Africa’s apartheid government. |
| 1967 | In Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down state bans on interracial marriage. |
| 1974 | Little League Baseball, after losing lawsuits, agreed to let girls play. |
| 1982 | More than a million people rallied in New York’s Central Park for nuclear disarmament. |
| 1991 | Boris Yeltsin became the first popularly elected leader of Russia, then still part of the Soviet Union. |
| 2003 | Actor Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died at 87. |
| 2016 | A gunman killed 49 people at Pulse, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. |
Born on June 12
- 1827: Johanna Spyri, Swiss author of “Heidi.”
- 1924: George H. W. Bush, later U.S. vice president and president, born in Milton, Massachusetts.
- 1929: Anne Frank, the diarist whose account of her family in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became world famous, born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Keep reading
Sources
- Reagan challenges Gorbachev to “tear down the Berlin Wall”, History.com
- This Day in History: June 12, History.com
- On This Day: June 12, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Johanna Spyri, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- George H. W. Bush, Miller Center, University of Virginia
- Who was Anne Frank?, Anne Frank House
