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Ontario Elections: 25 Tumultuous Years

The Ontario Legislature used to be called "the dullest chamber in all of Canada." For 42 years, the Progressive Conservatives and their "Big Blue Machine" ruled the province. But 1985 ushered the PCs out and an age of turbulence in with a Liberal-NDP coalition. In the next three elections, voters handed majorities to all three parties: a sweep for the Liberals, a stunning NDP victory and a sharp right turn with Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution. In 2002, it looked like a new blue era was settling in, with Harris passing the Tory torch to Ernie Eves. But Dalton McGuinty's Liberals swept the 2003 and 2007 elections and won a third time with a minority in 2011.

Ontario Elections: 25 Tumultuous Years

The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

In the ideological struggle that was the Cold War, East Germans voted the only way they could: with their feet. By the thousands each month, they escaped communist rule by slipping into the West through Berlin. In 1961, the East German government built a wall to keep them in. The Berlin Wall became both a barrier and a symbol of the differences between West and East, between democracy and communism. On Nov. 9, 1989, after floods of East Germans had left via third countries, the Berlin Wall came down, paving the way to German reunification.

The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

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