Here’s what happened in August 1991. You can click on the links to go to Wikipedia for fuller details
- August 4 – The Cruise Liner MTS Oceanos sinks off the coast of South Africa and all 571 passengers on board are safely evacuated.
- August 6 – Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web project and software on the alt.hypertext newsgroup.
- August 7 – Shapour Bakhtiar, former prime minister of Iran, is assassinated.
- August 8 – The Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time, collapses.
- August 17 – Strathfield Massacre: In Sydney, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots 7 people and injures 6 others before turning the gun on himself.
- August 19 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in the Crimeaduring a coup. The attempted coup, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and 7 hard-liners, collapses in less than 72 hours.
- August 20 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Estonia declares its independence from the Soviet Union, and more than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union’s parliament building protesting the coup that deposed President Mikhail Gorbachev.
- August 21 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Latvia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
- August 23 – The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or “Super Nintendo”) is released in the United States.
- August 24 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukraine declares independence from Soviet Union.
- August 25
- Student Linus Torvalds posts messages to Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix about the new operating system kernel he has been developing.
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Belarus declares independence from Soviet Union.
- August 27 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union.
- August 29 – Maronite general Michel Aoun leaves Lebanon via a French ship into exile.
- August 30 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union.
- August 31 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declare independence from the Soviet Union.
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