Berlin Wall a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc: In June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the
The Writing's on the Wall Writing's on the Wall" was certified 8× Platinum by the RIAA on November 6, 2001, and has sold over 6 million copies in the United States alone. "Billboard" magazine ranked "The Writing's on the Wall" at number 39 on the magazine's Top 200 Albums of the Decade. "The Writing's on the Wall" received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars, stating: "With their second album, "Writing's on the Wall", Destiny's Child still suffers from slightly uneven songwriting, but it's nevertheless an assured step forward for the girl group.