Summer 1987- Wallcracks
Berlin Wall section mentioned in Udall speech
"Mr. Gorbachev, do us all a favor and break the wall"
These rather sassy yet strong words were the memorable words of President Mo Udall during a visit over to West Berlin over in mid June 1987. The speech was a bit controversial and security was beefed out of precaution though Udall's patient approach along with his routes toward peace has made him fairly amicable among a good bit of the Soviets. He called upon for Mikhail Gorbachev to break the wall seperated the two halves of Berlin. The visit was done over in to give a speech, having noted the detrimental influence the wall was having on both sides and if they wanted this stress to really continue. While a respectful speech, the slight edge over on the key phrase was one also of cheekiness. That even with his Parkinson's, the President has not lost his spark and with it, came the wit. While the speech was done to assuage the worries of some of his critics for being too soft, it was done also as a tongue-in-cheek reference to further relaxing of tensions between the two and why still have the wall. Unsurpirsingly, the speech would be viewed as a bit concerning among some of those in the Udall administration and some noted the president was becoming bolder because he could tell his time was coming to an end. Regardless however, it would come to become one of the defining moments over the time period and become much more impactful just a few short years later.
Beyond the wall speech, much was happening in the middle of 1987. While the United States was preparing to deal with the oncoming immigrants as a result of the historic the Peres-Hussein Solution and the subseqent consequences, more history was being made.
Teddy Seymour is officially designated the first black man to sail around the world, when he completes his solo sailing circumnavigation in Frederiksted, St. Croix, of the United States Virgin Islands. Another American celeberation would later occur in American
woman Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim the
Bering Strait, crossing from
Little Diomede Island to
Big Diomede in 2 hours and 5 minutes. In additional news regarding the court, in the case of
Edwards v. Aguillard, in a near-unanimous stance, the
Supreme Court of the United States rules that a Louisiana law requiring that
creation science be taught in public schools whenever
evolution is taught is unconstitutional. [1] Overall, it seemed like there was a growing wave of positive and support that would be happening throughout the time period.
Around the world, much was happening. The UK would see a change come in with a hung parliament, resulting in the Tories under new leader Sir Geoffrey Howe managing to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats with many noting that while the LibDems has nibbled from both parties, they seemed to have taken a substanically bigger bite from the Tory voter base. Roy Hattersley became became leader of the opposition though many have speculated that he may not stay as leader of the Labour party and speculations wondered who it cold be. Many have noted the growing prominence of Peter Shore along with the return of Tony Benn, especially with SATMIN social movements, with the Bennites being predicted to start making a comeback at the time. Other Anglosphere news was on Bob Hawke 's Labor Government having grown an even larger majority government in Australia while Canada would introduce the "Loonie", a one dollar coin. Over in most of Europe, the Single European Act would be published by the European Community. Being the first major revision of the 1957
Treaty of Rome, the SIngle Eurorpean Act would set the
European Community an objective of establishing a
single market by 31 December 1992. [2] Other political movements could be seen; Taiwan would see the end of martial law in the nation after 38 years while South Korea would see the presidential candidate of the ruling party
Roh Tae-woo makes a speech promising a wide program of nationwide reforms, all thanks because of the efforts of the
June Democracy Movement. Despite some of the various troubles and pains, with everything moving forward, there was some positive sights encouraging everyone to go.
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[1]- Information and phrasing from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987
[2]- Information and phrasing from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_European_Act
