The median age in the United States in 2023 was 39.1 years, according to the Census Bureau. That means that approximately half the people in this country were born in 1984 or later.

What was happening four decades ago when about half America's current population started coming into the world?

In 1984, then-President Ronald Reagan was reelected. At that time, this nation's greatest foreign policy concern was the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union. On June 12, 1987, Reagan visited West Berlin, which was surrounded by Soviet-controlled East Germany and separated by a wall from Soviet-controlled East Berlin.

Reagan famously gave a speech that day in front of where that wall blocked access to an 18th-century structure known as the Brandenburg Gate.

"We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because it's our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom," he said.

"Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe," said Reagan.

He then issued an unambiguous challenge to then-Soviet Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"There is one sign the Soviets can make that........

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