John F. Kennedy's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" Speech (1963)
In 1963, John F. Kennedy had made a famous speech at the Berlin Wall. A famous quote is "Ich bin ein Berliner," which meant "I am a Berliner." There is one joke how the quote had gotten mistranslated as "I am a jelly doughnut," which "Berliner" was a name of a jelly doughnut. The crowd or audience made a mistake on what Kennedy had said, but in fact he had truly said "I am a citizen of Berlin." Full Quote: “Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we never had to put up a wall to keep our people in. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, “Ich bin ein Berliner”.” -President John F. Kennedy, June 26, 1963. (Anne Rooney, 2010, front inside cover)
Checkpoint Charlie Standoff
In 1961, shortly after the building of the Berlin Wall, an American official was heading to the opera in East Berlin. On October 27, Soviet and American tanks and jeeps were standing opposite sides in Checkpoint Charlie having a standoff. They were arguing over if they should investigate the American's travel documents because no one could pass through East or West Berlin. The standoff was for 16 hours at Checkpoint Charlie between East Berlin and West Berlin (Stein, "Berlin," 1997).