The end of the Cold War, which had been the symbol of division in Europe for almost half a century, is commonly associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall on 3 October 1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall also meant the fall of the ideological walls dividing Europe for so many years. Within a short span of time in its aftermath, one-party Communist states disappeared throughout Central and Eastern Europe, new independent states were established in the break-up republics of the former Soviet Union that then ceased to exist, and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.