THE DAY IN HISTORY · AUGUST 21
August 21 in history
What happened on August 21: 3 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1863, 1968 and 1991, each linked to the map that shows it.
— Lawrence, Kansas
1856 & 21 Aug 1863 — Sacked by pro-slavery raiders in 1856; in 1863 Quantrill’s guerrillas murder some 180 men and boys here. The border war was a civil war before the Civil War. Remember it plainly.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
— Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
21 Aug 1968 — Half a million Warsaw Pact troops end Czechoslovakia’s “socialism with a human face.” The Brezhnev Doctrine is born: fraternal states may never leave. 1989 is its exact negation.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE COLD WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
— August Coup
19–21 Aug 1991 — Hardliners seize Gorbachev and send tanks into Moscow; Yeltsin climbs one outside the parliament. The army refuses to fire, the coup dissolves in 60 hours — and takes the union with it.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE COLD WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
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