In 1945, following Germany’s defeat in World War II, the nation’s capital, Berlin, was divided into four sections, with the Americans, British and French controlling the western region and the Soviets gaining power in the eastern region. In May 1949, the three western sections came together as the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) being established in October of that same year. In 1952, the border between the two countries was closed and by the following year East Germans were prosecuted if they left their country without permission. In August 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected by the East German government to prevent its citizens from escaping to the West. Between 1949 and the wall’s inception, it’s estimated that over 2.5 million East Germans fled to the West in search of a less repressive life.

With the wall as a backdrop, President Reagan declared to a West Berlin crowd in 1987, “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.” He then called upon his Soviet counterpart: “Secretary General Gorbachev, if you seek peace—if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan then went on to ask Gorbachev to undertake serious arms reduction talks with the United States.

Most listeners at the time viewed Reagan’s speech as a dramatic appeal to Gorbachev to renew negotiations on nuclear arms reductions. It was also a reminder that despite the Soviet leader’s public statements about a new relationship with the West, the U.S. wanted to see action taken to lessen Cold War tensions. Happily for Berliners, though, the speech also foreshadowed events to come: Two years later, on November 9, 1989, joyful East and West Germans did break down the infamous barrier between East and West Berlin. Germany was officially reunited on October 3, 1990.

Gorbachev, who had been in office since 1985, stepped down from his post as Soviet leader in 1991. Reagan, who served two terms as president, from 1981 to 1989, died on June 5, 2004, at age 93. Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022, at age 91.

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For two years, the Franks and four other families hid, fed and cared for by Gentile friends. The families were discovered by the Gestapo, which had been tipped off, in 1944. The Franks were taken to Auschwitz, where Anne’s mother died. Friends in Amsterdam searched the rooms and found Anne’s diary hidden away.

Anne and her sister were transferred to another camp, Bergen-Belsen, where Anne died a month before the war ended.

Anne’s father survived Auschwitz and published Anne’s diary in 1947 as The Diary of a Young Girl. The book has been translated into more than 75 languages.

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When the gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida entered the club with an AR-15-type assault rifle and a handgun, the nearly 300 people inside were winding down their Latin-themed night of dancing. When the first shots rang out, many described not noticing, thinking the bangs were part of the songs, until people started to fall the floor and others ran in terror. Some hid in the bathrooms.

“I heard 20, 40, 50 shots,” Jon Alamo told BBC. “The music stopped.”

At 02:09, the nightclub posted on its Facebook page: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”

As Mateen moved through the nightclub, he exchanged fire with the club’s security guard and, as more officers arrived on the scene, shots continued to be exchanged. Mateen then escaped to the bathroom, where he took hostages and told the police he had explosives he was ready to detonate.

While the gunman was in the bathroom, police evacuated those still on the club’s dance floor. Many tweeted or texted for help from the inside, including people trapped in the bathroom who hid in the stalls trying not to be seen. Others played dead. During the attack, Mateen called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS.

At the same time, officers secured the building and prepared to enter the bathroom using explosives on the outside wall of the building. At about 5 AM, the police stormed through their exploded hole, then shot and killed Mateen.

At the time of the shooting, it was unclear if this was an act of terrorism or a hate crime. While Mateen’s family said that he had shown anger towards two gay men kissing the week before the attack, evidence discovered in the years after the attack shows that this may have been a planned act of terrorism and may have had a different target—a Disney complex—before Mateen got spooked by police.

Mateen had been interviewed by FBI officers twice in 2013, after making comments to coworkers about his connections to ISIS. He was questioned again in 2014 about a potential connection to Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American suicide bomber who had attacked in Syria.

Seven months after the attack, Noor Salman, the Omar Mateen’s wife, was charged with obstruction of justice for making contradictory statements to the FBI, and aiding and abetting for allegedly ignoring her husband’s connections to ISIS. The FBI believed she may have known of his plan.

In March of 2018, she was found not guilty.

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Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the independent Republic of India. She became a national political figure in 1955, when she was elected to the executive body of the Congress Party. In 1959, she served as president of the party and in 1964 was appointed to an important post in Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s ruling government. In January 1966, Lal Bahadur Shastri died, and Gandhi became head of the Congress Party and thus prime minister of India. Soon after becoming India’s first female head of government, Gandhi was challenged by the right wing of the Congress Party, and in the 1967 election she won only a narrow victory and thus had to rule with a deputy prime minister.

In 1971, she won a resounding reelection victory over the opposition and became the undisputed leader of India. That year, she ordered India’s invasion of Pakistan in support of the creation of Bangladesh, which won her greater popularity and led her New Congress Party to a landslide victory in national elections in 1972.

During the next few years, she presided over increasing civil unrest brought on by food shortages, inflation, and regional disputes. Her administration was criticized for its strong-arm tactics in dealing with these problems. Meanwhile, charges by the Socialist Party that she had defrauded the 1971 election led to a national scandal. In 1975, the High Court in Allahabad convicted her of a minor election infraction and banned her from politics for six years. In response, she declared a state of emergency throughout India, imprisoned thousands of political opponents, and restricted personal freedoms in the country. Among several controversial programs during this period was the forced sterilization of men and women as a means of controlling population growth.

In 1977, long-postponed national elections were held, and Gandhi and her party were swept from office. The next year, Gandhi’s supporters broke from the Congress Party and formed the Congress (I) Party, with the “I” standing for “Indira.” Later in 1978, she was briefly imprisoned for official corruption. In 1979, divisions with the ruling Janata Party led to the collapse of its government. New elections were held in January 1980, and the Congress (I) Party, with Indira as its head, won back the lower Indian parliament in a stunning reversal of its political fortunes. Gandhi, embraced by Indians who valued her strong leadership, was again prime minister. The legal cases against her were subsequently dismissed.

In the early 1980s, several regional states intensified their call for greater autonomy from New Delhi, and the Sikh secessionist movement in Punjab resorted to violence and terrorism. In 1984, the Sikh leaders set up base in their sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar. Gandhi responded by sending the Indian army in, and hundreds of Sikhs were killed in the government assault. In retaliation, Sikh members of Gandhi’s own bodyguard gunned her down on the grounds of her home on October 31, 1984. She was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Gandhi.

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Although he had agreed to turn himself in, Simpson escaped with friend A.C. Cowlings in his white Ford Bronco on June 17. He was carrying his passport, a disguise, and $8,750 in cash. Simpson’s car was spotted that afternoon, but he refused to surrender immediately. Threatening to kill himself, he led police in a low-speed chase through the freeways of Los Angeles as the entire nation watched on television. Eventually, Simpson gave himself up at his home in Brentwood.

The evidence against Simpson was extensive: His blood was found at the murder scene; blood, hair, and fibers from Brown and Goldman were found in Simpson’s car and at his home; one of his gloves was also found in Brown’s home, the other outside his own house; and bloody shoeprints found at the scene matched those of shoes owned by Simpson.

However, Simpson’s so-called “Dream Team” of defense lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey, claimed before a national television audience that Simpson had been framed by racist police officers such as Detective Mark Fuhrman. After deliberating for three hours, the jury acquitted Simpson. He vowed to find the “real killers,” but has yet to turn up any new leads.

In a civil trial brought about by the families of the victims, Simpson was found responsible for causing Goldman’s death and committing battery against Brown in February 1997, and was ordered to pay a total of $33.5 million, little of which he has paid.

In 2007, Simpson ran into legal problems once again when he was arrested for breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room and taking sports memorabilia, which he claimed had been stolen from him, at gunpoint. On October 3, 2008, he was found guilty of 12 charges related to the incident, including armed robbery and kidnapping, and sentenced to 33 years in prison. He was released on October 1, 2017. Simpson died of cancer on April 11, 2024.

WATCH: Stream the Lifetime original documentary .

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During World War II, Evers volunteered for the U.S. Army and participated in the Normandy invasion. In 1952, he joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As a field worker for the NAACP, Evers traveled through his home state encouraging poor African Americans to register to vote and recruiting them into the civil rights movement. He was instrumental in getting witnesses and evidence for the Emmett Till murder case, which brought national attention to the plight of African Americans in the South. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was killed.

After a funeral in Jackson, he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President John F. Kennedy and many other leaders publicly condemned the killing. In 1964, the first trial of chief suspect Byron De La Beckwith ended with a deadlock by an all-white jury, sparking numerous protests. When a second all-white jury also failed to reach a decision, De La Beckwith was set free. Three decades later, the state of Mississippi reopened the case under pressure from civil rights leaders and Evers’ family. In February 1994, a racially mixed jury in Jackson found Beckwith guilty of murder. The unrepentant white supremacist, aged 73, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in 2001.

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Man O’ War was sired by the champion Fair Play, one of the most successful sires in racing history, and purchased by Samuel D. Riddle in 1918 from August Belmont Jr., son of the racing guru for whom the Belmont Stakes was named. As a two-year-old in 1919, Man O’ War won nine out of ten races under jockey Johnny Loftus. His only loss that year came at the Sanford Memorial Stakes, in which his back was to the starting line at the beginning of the race. At that time, before the advent of starting gates, a rope was all that held horses back from starting their run. The Sanford turned out to be the only loss of Man O’ War’s racing career.

As a three-year old, Man O’ War dominated the field. Loftus was denied a jockey’s license that year, so Clarence Kummer rode “Big Red,” as Man O’ War came to be known. The horse skipped the Kentucky Derby, as his trainers deemed the mile-and-a-quarter race to be too grueling so early in the season, so the Preakness Stakes was Man O’ War’s coming out party. He won easily.

Man O’ War entered the Belmont Stakes as an overwhelming 1-to-20 favorite, largely because only one horse, Donnaconna, was entered against him. With victory over Donnaconna seemingly assured, Big Red’s real race that year was against the world record for a mile and three furlongs (2:16.8), which had been set in 1908 by the horse Dean Swift in Liverpool, England. The American record of 2:17.4 had been set by Sir Barton at the 1919 Belmont. Man O’ War took more than two seconds off both times, running the race in 2:14.2 on his way to a 20-length victory. Donnaconna finished the race a full 1/16 of a mile behind the winner.

In his final race, Man O’ War defeated the 1919 Triple Crown winner Sir Barton by seven lengths at the Kenilworth Park Gold Cup in Windsor, Ontario. It marked Man O’ War’s 20th win in 21 races.

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After the war, Bush married Barbara Pierce, attended Yale University, worked in the oil business and then devoted his life to public service. After serving two terms as a U.S. representative from Texas, he served in several diplomatic and intelligence capacities, including U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971), chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973), chief envoy to the People’s Republic of China (1974) and briefly as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from January 1976 to January 1977. In 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan chose Bush to be his running mate; Bush went on to serve two terms as vice president. In 1988, Bush won the presidency and presided over the end of the Cold War between Russia and the U.S. and led America in the 1991 defeat of Saddam Hussein during Operation Desert Storm.

Bush was the father of another president, George Walker Bush, and of Jeb Bush, the two-term governor of Florida. Barbara Bush died on April 17, 2018, in Houston, Texas. George H.W. Bush died on November 30, 2018, also in Houston.

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The Philippines, a large island archipelago situated off Southeast Asia, was colonized by the Spanish in the latter part of the 16th century. Opposition to Spanish rule began among Filipino priests, who resented Spanish domination of the Roman Catholic churches in the islands. In the late 19th century, Filipino intellectuals and the middle class began calling for independence. In 1892, the Katipunan, a secret revolutionary society, was formed in Manila, the Philippine capital on the island of Luzon. Membership grew dramatically, and in August 1896 the Spanish uncovered the Katipunan’s plans for rebellion, forcing premature action from the rebels. Revolts broke out across Luzon, and in March 1897, 28-year-old Emilio Aguinaldo became leader of the rebellion.

By late 1897, the revolutionaries had been driven into the hills southeast of Manila, and Aguinaldo negotiated an agreement with the Spanish. In exchange for financial compensation and a promise of reform in the Philippines, Aguinaldo and his generals would accept exile in Hong Kong. The rebel leaders departed, and the Philippine Revolution temporarily was at an end.

In April 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out over Spain’s brutal suppression of a rebellion in Cuba. The first in a series of decisive U.S. victories occurred on May 1, 1898, when the U.S. Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey annihilated the Spanish Pacific fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines. From his exile, Aguinaldo made arrangements with U.S. authorities to return to the Philippines and assist the United States in the war against Spain. He landed on May 19, rallied his revolutionaries, and began liberating towns south of Manila. On June 12, he proclaimed Philippine independence and established a provincial government, of which he subsequently became head.

His rebels, meanwhile, had encircled the Spanish in Manila and, with the support of Dewey’s squadron in Manila Bay, would surely have conquered the Spanish. Dewey, however, was waiting for U.S. ground troops, which began landing in July and took over the Filipino positions surrounding Manila. On August 8, the Spanish commander informed the United States that he would surrender the city under two conditions: The United States was to make the advance into the capital look like a battle, and under no conditions were the Filipino rebels to be allowed into the city. On August 13, the mock Battle of Manila was staged, and the Americans kept their promise to keep the Filipinos out after the city passed into their hands.

While the Americans occupied Manila and planned peace negotiations with Spain, Aguinaldo convened a revolutionary assembly, the Malolos, in September. They drew up a democratic constitution, the first ever in Asia, and a government was formed with Aguinaldo as president in January 1899. On February 4, what became known as the Philippine Insurrection began when Filipino rebels and U.S. troops skirmished inside American lines in Manila. Two days later, the U.S. Senate voted by one vote to ratify the Treaty of Paris with Spain. The Philippines were now a U.S. territory, acquired in exchange for $20 million in compensation to the Spanish.

In response, Aguinaldo formally launched a new revolt–this time against the United States. The rebels, consistently defeated in the open field, turned to guerrilla warfare, and the U.S. Congress authorized the deployment of 60,000 troops to subdue them. By the end of 1899, there were 65,000 U.S. troops in the Philippines, but the war dragged on. Many anti-imperialists in the United States, such as Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, opposed U.S. annexation of the Philippines, but in November 1900 Republican incumbent William McKinley was reelected, and the war continued.

On March 23, 1901, in a daring operation, U.S. General Frederick Funston and a group of officers, pretending to be prisoners, surprised Aguinaldo in his stronghold in the Luzon village of Palanan and captured the rebel leader. Aguinaldo took an oath of allegiance to the United States and called for an end to the rebellion, but many of his followers fought on. During the next year, U.S. forces gradually pacified the Philippines. In an infamous episode, U.S. forces on the island of Samar retaliated against the massacre of a U.S. garrison by killing all men on the island above the age of 10. Many women and young children were also butchered. General Jacob Smith, who directed the atrocities, was court-martialed and forced to retire for turning Samar, in his words, into a “howling wilderness.”

In 1902, an American civil government took over administration of the Philippines, and the three-year Philippine insurrection was declared to be at an end. Scattered resistance, however, persisted for several years.

More than 4,000 Americans perished suppressing the Philippines–more than 10 times the number killed in the Spanish-American War. More than 20,000 Filipino insurgents were killed, and an unknown number of civilians perished.

In 1935, the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established with U.S. approval, and Manuel Quezon was elected the country’s first president. On July 4, 1946, full independence was granted to the Republic of the Philippines by the United States.

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Founded in 1939, the league didn’t officially prohibit girls from participating until 1951. A year earlier, 12-year-old Kay Johnston of Corning, New York, cut her hair short and successfully tried out for her local Little League team under the name "Tubby." Even after her coach and teammates discovered her secret, her skills earned her a place on the team, where she played first base. But local parents, objecting to Kay's presence on the baseball field, complained to the national organization. In 1951, the league announced a new rule, nicknamed the "Tubby Rule," which officially barred girls from playing on Little League teams.

In 1972, despite this rule, 12-year-old Hoboken girl Maria Pepe joined her local Little League team. She pitched three games as the team's starting pitcher before being forced to quit. Pepe was adamant that she wanted to play, however. The National Organization of Women filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pepe—and all girls aged 8 to 12—in New Jersey in 1973.

In hearings, Little League Executive Vice President Creighton J. Hale argued that "physiological differences" made it dangerous for girls to play against boys. In addition to their “weaker” muscles and bones, he asserted, without evidence, that a blow to their chests by a batted or thrown ball could cause cancer. Sylvia Pressler, as hearing officer for the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, ruled that the Little League's exclusion of girls violated the state's Law Against Discrimination. "The institution of Little League is as American as the hot dog and apple pie," she argued. "There's no reason why that part of Americana should be withheld from girls." On appeal, the New Jersey Superior Court affirmed Pressler's ruling on March 29, 1974.

This ruling only applied to New Jersey leagues, however. Across the country, more than a dozen new lawsuits against the Little League organization emerged, and girls joined teams from New York to California. Facing mounting pressure, Little League Baseball announced its decision to "defer to the changing social climate" and allow girls to play ball in June, 1974. Congress passed a gender-neutral amendment to the Little League charter on December 26 of the same year and President Gerald Ford signed it into law.

By the spring of 1974, Maria Pepe was too old to play Little League. But the following year, 50 girls in Hoboken, N.J., followed in Pepe's footsteps and tried out for their local teams. Since then, millions of American girls have played on Little League baseball and softball teams. "It really wasn't about just baseball," Pepe said in a 2012 interview. "It was about what girls should and shouldn't do in life." Pepe's baseball cap from her 1972 Little League season is now on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

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The United States and the Soviet Union had been in an arms race since World War II, and the Cold War felt particularly hot in the early 1980s. Taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was a staunch proponent of building up America’s nuclear arsenal and vehemently opposed the idea of disarmament treaties. His rhetoric gave new life to the anti-war movement, which had been relatively quiet since its heyday in the late 1960s and early '70s, when protestors fought against the Vietnam War and accompanying draft. Fearing that Reagan would prefer nuclear war to nuclear disarmament, organizers got to work on a mass demonstration in Midtown Manhattan to coincide with the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament.

The rally in Central Park brought together activists from all over the world and all corners of the antiwar movement. Delegations arrived from across North America and and as far afield as Bangladesh and Zambia. Groups of Roman Catholic priests rubbed elbows with rabbis and members of the Communist Party, and protestors’ signs illustrated the range of their political demands: the New York Times recorded posters reading "U.S. Out of El Salvador," "Houses Not Bomb Shelters," "A Feminist World Is a Nuclear-Free Zone,'" and, more to the point, "I Hate Nuclear War." Many called for an immediate end to all nuclear arms programs, but others were less radical, calling simply for the resumption of disarmament negotiations. Activists pointed out the contrast between Reagan’s profligate defense spending and his stingy approach to social programs, and drew connections between the administration’s belligerent attitude toward Russia and its actions in Nicaragua, where the CIA was engaged in funding, supplying and coordinating a terror campaign waged by the right-wing Contra rebels. In keeping with its message, the rally was entirely peaceful, and many attendees camped overnight in the park after the crowd began to disperse around 6 p.m.

The 1982 rally and UN special session did not immediately lead to new disarmament treaties, but five years later the U.S. and U.S.S.R. signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first time in history that the superpowers had agreed to shrink their nuclear stockpiles.

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On June 6, 1944, after a year of meticulous planning conducted in secrecy by a joint Anglo-American staff, the largest combined sea, air, and land military operation in history began on the French coast at Normandy. The Allied invasion force included 3 million men, 13,000 aircraft, 1,200 warships, 2,700 merchant ships, and 2,500 landing craft.

Fifteen minutes after midnight on June 6, the first of 23,000 U.S., British, and Canadian paratroopers and glider troops plunged into the darkness over Normandy. Just before dawn, Allied aircraft and ships bombed the French coast along the Baie de la Seine, and at daybreak the bombardment ended as 135,000 Allied troops stormed ashore at five landing sites. Despite the formidable German coastal defenses, beachheads were achieved at all five landing locations.

At one site—Omaha Beach—German resistance was especially strong, and the Allied position was only secured after hours of bloody fighting by the Americans assigned to it. By the evening, some 150,000 American, British, and Canadian troops were ashore, and the Allies held about 80 square miles.

During the next six days, Allied forces in Normandy moved steadily forward in all sectors against fierce German resistance. On June 12, the five landing groups met up, and Operation Overlord—the code name for the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe—proceeded as planned.

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