Two of the most significant events of the 20th century happened on this day in Germany, separated by six decades: Kristallnacht and the fall of the Berlin wall. At Townhall, Rabbi Hanoch Teller writes:

The accurate translation of Kristallnacht is “Crystal Night,” and Field Marshal Hermann Goering, who had just been charged with implementing the Reich’s Jewish policy, intended to use this connotation to ridicule the victims. Like so many other Nazi perversions of language (Sonderbehandlung, “special treatment” referring to gassing victims; Euthanasie, for mass murder of retarded and physically handicapped patients) this term was meant to be a cynical appellation that would free the victims of any sympathy and reinterpret murder, arson, robbery and plunder into a glistening event marked by sparkle and gleam.

History books refer to Kristallnacht as the beginning of the Holocaust. This is akin to saying that the burning of the Reichstag is what was responsible for Hitler becoming Germany's unchallenged Fuhrer. Such oversimplification conveys an ignorance of history and aborts the chance for the proper lesson to be learned.

Nearly seven decades is adequate time to soberly reflect, and set the record straight. Auschwitz did not evolve from the Wannsee Conference, which did not evolve from The Nuremberg Laws, which did not evolve from Versailles humiliation.

The eventuality of the Holocaust was inescapable regardless of Kristallnacht. Once the dynamics of hatred were engaged, annihilation was inevitable. The Nazis sought a “Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem” and they had the might, the determination and the requisite ruthlessness for its execution.

The Nazis attempted to portray Kristallnacht as a spontaneous eruption of German hatred for the Jews. Alas, nothing happens overnight; hatred festers, it doesn’t metastasize.

After World War II, East Germany replaced one Evil Empire with another, and in 1961, the Berlin Wall went up to physically divide Berlin's free and unfree halves. On November 9th, 1989, it was "breached", to borrow a word from this BBC article:

The Berlin Wall has been breached after nearly three decades keeping East and West Berliners apart.

At midnight East Germany's Communist rulers gave permission for gates along the Wall to be opened after hundreds of people converged on crossing points.

They surged through cheering and shouting and were be met by jubilant West Berliners on the other side.

Ecstatic crowds immediately began to clamber on top of the Wall and hack large chunks out of the 28-mile (45-kilometre) barrier.

It had been erected in 1961 on the orders of East Germany's former leader Walter Ulbricht stop people leaving for West Germany.

Since 1949 about 2.5 million people had fled East Germany.

After 1961, the Wall and other fortifications along the 860-mile (1,380-kilometre) border shared by East and West Germany have kept most East Germans in.

Many of those attempting to escape have been shot dead by border guards.

A couple of years ago, Steven Hayward excerpted the opening to the follow-up to his magisterial first volume of The Age Of Reagan:

"Virtually the entire foreign policy apparatus of the U.S. government," Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson recalled, tried to stop Ronald Reagan from saying "Tear down this wall," including Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz and the new National Security Adviser, General Colin Powell. "Some Reagan advisers," the New York Times reported without naming names, "wanted an address with less polemics." The State Department and the National Security Council persisted up to the last minute trying to derail it, including one meeting between Powell and White House communications director Tom Griscom that participants say was "tense and forceful." Reagan had to intervene against his own advisers. Ken Duberstein, serving then as Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, has offered different accounts of how the conversation went, but the gist of it was like this—Reagan: "I’m the president, right?" Duberstein: "Yes, sir, Mr. President. We’re clear about that." Reagan: "So I get to decide whether the line about tearing down the wall stays in?" Duberstein: "That’s right, sir. It’s your decision." Reagan: "Then it stays in."

Fittingly, a large slab of the wall is on display at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California: