The East German government erects the Berlin Wall to prevent an exodus of its citizens

President Kennedy, in divided Berlin, makes the dramatic declaration: Ich bin ein Berliner ('I am a Berliner')

Konrad Adenauer resigns after 14 years as Chancellor of West Germany and is succeeded by his economics minister, Ludwig Erhard

Footballer Franz Beckenbauer plays his first international for West Germany

German performance artist Joseph Beuys walks round a gallery demonstrating How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare

The Ibo of eastern Nigeria claim independence for their region – as the republic of Biafra

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Stimmung ('Tuning') employs six unaccompanied voices for 75 minutes

Willy Brandt, leader of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), becomes chancellor of Germany

The breakaway province of Biafra surrenders after three years of devastating civil war in Nigeria

With support from Moscow, Erich Honecker takes Walter Ulbricht's place as leader of East Germany

Eleven Israeli athletes are killed by Palestinian 'Black September' terrorists at the Munich Olympic Games

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is deported from the USSR to West Germany for publishing The Gulag Archipelago

Willy Brandt resigns and is succeeded by Helmut Schmidt, as leader of the SDP and chancellor of Germany

Yakubu Gowon, who united Nigeria after the Biafran war, is thrown out in a military coup

German author Botho Strauss's play Three Acts of Recognition wins him an international audience

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Thursday from Light, the first of a seven-part opera cycle, is performed in Milan

CDU leader Helmut Kohl follows Helmut Schmidt as chancellor of Germany

British architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford complete a new art gallery for Stuttgart

Luciano Berio's opera Un re in ascolto has its premiere in Salzburg

US choreographer William Forsythe becomes director of the Frankfurt Ballet

17-year-old German tennis-player Boris Becker becomes the youngest ever to win the men's singles at Wimbledon

18-year-old German tennis player Steffi Graf deposes Martina Navratilova as world no. 1

US architect Daniel Libeskind designs the City Edge project in Berlin, building it up from startlingly fragmented forms

Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany since 1971, is forced to resign after massive popular demonstrations

Citizens of East Berlin demolish the Berlin Wall, in what proves a symbolic end to the Cold War