The defeated German state was sectioned off half to USSR and half to the Allies, who quickly consolidated their sections into a united West Germany. The capital of Berlin, itself squarely in the middle of the Soviet territory, was similarly divided into two. This gave Berliners unfortunate enough to find themselves on the Russian side the chance to escape to the West, which they did in significant numbers until the USSR build a wall, fortified with machine guns and barbed wire, to keep out East from West.

On this day. June 26, in 1963, President John F Kennedy, on a solidarity trip to West Berlin, got up on a podium to address a crowd of close to half a million. “Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum,” he said.” Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

That Kennedy pronounced himself a type of jelly doughnut popular in West Berlin at the time is a common misconception that unfortunately has been perpetuated by sources as authoritative as CNN. In actuality, Kennedy ran his speech several times by German translators, and his “ein” before Berliner was exactly correct: he did not pronounce himself to be a resident of Berlin, but rather with the Berlin people. He was no more pronouncing himself a jelly doughnut than a New Yorker would call themselves the magazine by the same name.