From the Brandenberger Tor to Checkpoint Charlie: Berlin, a swamp settlement on the Spree River, first mention 1237, came the Hohenzollern family for 500 years, all of the Karls and Wilhelms and Friedrichs until Karl Wilhelm abdicates in 1918, then Weimar, then Hitler, then Reichtag fire, then “state of emergency,” Kristallnacht, KZ (Konzentration) camps, Battle for Berlin, Allied victory, nation and capital in four sectors, then division, a wall, Bonn capital in the west (BRD), Berlin in the east (DDR), 1989 a press conference gone wrong (just so story), reunification.