Shortly after midnight on this day in 1961, East German soldiers begin laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city.
After World War II, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though technically part of the Soviet zone, was also split, with the Soviets taking the eastern part of the city. After a massive Allied airlift in June 1948 foiled a Soviet attempt to blockade West Berlin, the eastern section was drawn even more tightly into the Soviet fold. Over the next 12 years, cut off from its western counterpart and basically reduced to a Soviet satellite, East Germany saw between 2.5 million and 3 million of its citizens head to West Germany in search of better opportunities. By 1961, some 1,000 East Germans–including many skilled laborers, professionals and intellectuals–were leaving every day.
In August, Walter Ulbricht, the Communist leader of East Germany, got the go-ahead from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to begin the sealing off of all access between East and West Berlin. Soldiers began the work over the night of August 12-13, laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire slightly inside the East Berlin border. The wire was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights. East German officers known as Volkspolizei (“Volpos”) patrolled the Berlin Wall day and night.
Many Berlin residents on that first morning found themselves suddenly cut off from friends or family members in the other half of the city. Led by their mayor, Willi Brandt, West Berliners demonstrated against the wall, as Brandt criticized Western democracies, particularly the United States, for failing to take a stand against it. President John F. Kennedy had earlier said publicly that the United States could only really help West Berliners and West Germans, and that any kind of action on behalf of East Germans would only result in failure.
declare war on Japan once the Nazis were defeated is your answer.
In the years before the declaration of war by the USSR on Japan (following the two nuclear attacks on Hiroshima & Nagasaki), the USSR had tried to keep a good relationship with Japan to avoid fighting a two-front war (which would be extremely hard considering the great distance in between European Russia and Asia Russia. However, if USSR was able to defeat one and then the other, it would be easier.
This led to the decision to help the Allies take pressure off the landing of the French beaches (Sword, Juno, Omaha, Utah, etc), and was able to 'tie up' large amounts of German troops in the east.
In return, the USSR declared war on Japan following the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki (as said above), and the declaration of war on Japan, leading to Japan's surrender.
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Austin, texas was named after stephen f. austin. the president of texas, mirabeau b. lamar, commissioned edwin weller to plan the new city. so technically the president of texas established the capital of texas.
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I hope this helps(:
In 1854, the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, split two
existing political parties the Whig party and Jacksonian Democrats and led to
the creation of the Republican party. Kansas-Nebraska act overturned the Missouri
compromise and allowed settlers to decide whether slavery would be allowed in
their state. This led to the creation of the Republican party founded by anti-slavers
whose primary objective was fighting slavery.
