Today in history: October 12th, 1492 and 1986
Today, there are actually two almost equally historical events that I want to mention. For one, today 514 years ago, Christopher Columbus reached the shore of America for the first time. This discovery clearly changed the world’s history quite dramatically.
The other event took place in 1986, when the U.S. president at the time, Ronald Reagan, and the Secretary General of the USSR at the time, Michail Gorbatschow, met in Reykjavik, Island. Actually, the meeting had no agenda and there was no final communique presented. So in the beginning, it was almost considered a failure. But in retroperspective, we now know that this meeting was the beginning of serious communication and negotiation between the U.S. and the USSR and first of all, led to the coordinated disarmament of the two superpowers and in the long term enabled the fall of the iron curtain, including the reunification of Germany. I’d say, as such it probably the event that has influenced the world of the past twenty the most.
[via DW Kalenderblatt 1und 2