Berlin

   This capital of Germany was overrun by the Red Army in 1945, bringing an end to World War II. Under the Potsdam Agreement, the city was divided between east and west, with the three Allied powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—each holding a sector in the west, and the Soviet Union (USSR) holding the east. However, the city became the focus of growing disagreements about the postwar future of Germany and the payment of reparations. When the Allies proposed unifying the sectors and introduced a common currency in 1948, the USSR imposed a land blockade. The Allies responded with the Berlin airlift. Berlin remained divided; in April 1961, a wall symbolizing the divisions between East and West in the Cold War was built on the East German side. It remained in place until November 1989, when its destruction indicated the collapse of the communist regime and end of the Cold War.