Brandenburg Gate role in 2018 European Athletics Championships. It is also the usual finish line of the Berlin Marathon. A Soviet flag flew from a flagpole atop the gate from 1945 until 1957, when it was replaced by an East German flag. Since the reunification of Germany, the flag and the pole have been removed. During the 1953 riots in East Berlin the Soviet flag was torn off by West Germans. In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviets hung large red banners across it to prevent him looking into East Berlin. In the 1980s, decrying the
City Gate (Valletta) was then demolished in 2011, and it was replaced by Piano's gate which was completed in 2014. City Gate is located within the Porta Reale Curtain, a curtain wall at the centre of the Valletta Land Front, located between St. James' and St. John's Bastions. A bridge spanning across Valletta's deep ditch leads to the gate. The gate was originally protected by a "couvre porte", an advanced ditch and a lunette known as St. Madeleine's Lunette. During British rule, the lunette was demolished and part of the advanced ditch was filled in. The site was later occupied by the bus