  The QCD counterpart of Hawking radiation from black holes leads to thermal
hadron production in high energy collisions, from $e^+e^-$ annihilation to
heavy ion interactions. This hadronic radiation is formed by tunnelling through
the event horizon of colour confinement and is emitted at a universal
temperature $T_H \simeq (\sigma /2 \pi)^{1/2}$, where $\sigma$ denotes the
string tension. Since the event horizon does not allow information transfer,
the radiation is thermal ``at birth''.
