1991 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev returned to Moscow after the coup disintegrated in the face of popular resistance led by Boris Yeltsin. As some of the leaders of the bungled coup flew to Crimea, where Gorbachev had been held prisoner during his holiday, to plead for clemency, others went into hiding. Gorbachev was formally reinstated to an office that leaves him in Yeltsin’s shadow. “The President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, made a declaration to the state television and radio that he is in full control of the situation and has restored contact with the country, broken off as a result of the adventurist actions of a group of state officials,” Soviet television news said. Outside the parliament of the Russian Federation, there were jubilant scenes.
Other important events
1808 - British forces defeat French at Vimiero, Portugal.
1917 - German forces attack Russians on the Latvian front in the First World War I.
1936 - The British Broadcasting Corporation makes its first television broadcast.
1959 - Hawaii becomes 50th state of the United States.
1975 - US lifts 12-year ban on exports to Cuba, but embargo on direct trade between Cuba and US remains in effect.
1979 - More than 50 people are killed in Thailand’s worst train crash in Bangkok suburb.
1983 - Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino is assassinated at Manila airport.
1985 - Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto returns from exile in Europe to receive a huge welcome in her home town.
1986 - More than 17,000 people die when toxic gas erupts from a volcanic lake in Cameroon.
1988 - Nearly 1,000 people are killed and more than 10,000 are injured in a severe earthquake that hits India and Nepal.
1995 - A bomb rips apart a bus during morning rush hour in occupied Jerusalem, killing five people and injuring more than 100.
2002 - Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf unveils constitutional changes giving him power to dismiss the parliament.
2004 - A series of bombs explode at an opposition rally in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, killing at least 14 people.
2006 - At least 58 are killed and 143 are injured after two commuter trains collide north of Cairo.
2007 - Hurricane Dean, the strongest hurricane to hit the Atlantic region since 1988, crashes into the Mexican coast.
2008 - Masdar ground-breaking for the first photovoltaic production plant takes place in Ichtershausen, Germany.
2010 - Iran becomes the second nuclear-capable country in the Middle East when it begins fuelling its first nuclear power plant.
2013 - US soldier Bradley Manning is sentenced to 35 years in prison for giving classified military and diplomatic documents to the anti- secrecy group WikiLeaks.
2014 - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan names Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as his successor as Prime Minister.
