June 12th Today in History

1987 – President Ronald Reagan gave his historic address at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, addressing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Delivering the speech at the wall that had divided the city since 1961, Reagan challenged the Soviet Union to demonstrate a genuine commitment to human rights and liberalization. “General Secretary 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’s speech writers and advisors repeatedly removed the line from the speech, fearing it was too provocative, but Reagan added it back it in. It became a defining moment of the Cold War. Just over two years later, on November 9, 1989, peaceful mass protests in East Germany forced open the borders, leading citizens to dismantle the barrier in an event that came to symbolize the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.

2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. SpaceShipOne, an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft, achieved sub-orbital spaceflight at speeds of up to 3,000 feet per second (2,000 miles per hour) or 910 meters per second (3,300 kilometers per hour) using a hybrid rocket motor. Its distinctive “feathering” atmospheric reentry system involved folding the rear half of the wing and the twin tail booms 70 degrees upward along a hinge running the length of the wing. This design increased drag while maintaining stability. In 2004, SpaceShipOne successfully completed the first crewed private spaceflight. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was promptly retired from active service. Its mother ship was named “White Knight.” Both the spacecraft and its mother ship were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan’s aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million.