# Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence

The worldwide struggle for independence: African freedom from Ghana and Kenya to Algeria and the fall of apartheid; Asian independence from India's Quit India to Vietnam; the Americas from the Haitian Revolution to Bolivar; and the people-power movements from the Philippines to the 1989 revolutions.

*This story parallel: The British Empire and its dark history*
*This story parallel: Segregation: Jim Crow and its global cousins*
*This story continues: Colonization: the making of the modern world*
*This story parallel: The Congo: from Leopold to the resource wars*
*This story part of: State, law, and coercion*
*Mau Mau: the uprising, the camps, and the reckoning part of this story*
*The Scramble for Africa led to this story*
*Dependency: why independence did not bring economic freedom continues this story*
*The United Nations: peace, power, and its failures parallel this story*
*Rwanda: from colonial race-making to Kagame parallel this story*
*The Ottoman Empire parallel this story*
*South America: from the Inca to independence part of this story*
*The Portuguese Empire: from Sagres to the Carnation Revolution parallel this story*
*Kenya: from the Swahili coast to the republic part of this story*
*Ireland: from the island of saints to the Republic part of this story*
*The loyalists won: who inherited Kenya's independence parallel this story*
*The faiths that fought empire: African religion and resistance part of this story*
*Jomo Kenyatta: from Johnstone Kamau to the verdict on independence parallel this story*
*Somaliland and Somalia: partition, collapse, and an unrecognized state parallel this story*
*Ethiopia: the empire that was never colonized parallel this story*
*The Forty Group: the militants who lit the Mau Mau fuse part of this story*
*Kenyatta in Britain: the fifteen years that made a leader parallel this story*
*Pan-Africanism: from the color line to independence parallel this story*
*Why Kenya was unique: the settler colony that could not hold parallel this story*
*Lancaster House: the room where the empire negotiated its exits part of this story*
*Co-opt the moderate, bury the militant: the pattern of managed decolonization parallel this story*
*The London School of Economics: Fabians, the economics wars, and the making of an elite parallel this story*
*Nkrumah and Ghana: the first colony to fall part of this story*
*Hastings Banda: the Anglicized doctor who ruled Malawi part of this story*
*The Akamba and the fight for independence: cattle, land, and Kapenguria part of this story*

## 4 July 1776 — The United States declares independence

Thirteen British colonies declared independence, asserting that governments draw their power from the consent of the governed. The Declaration's language of natural rights influenced later independence and rights movements across Latin America and beyond. Britain recognized US independence in 1783 after the Revolutionary War.

## 4 November 1780 — Tupac Amaru II's rebellion in the Andes

Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, taking the name Tupac Amaru II after his Inca ancestor, led a mass uprising of Indigenous and mixed people against Spanish colonial abuses. It was the largest revolt in colonial Spanish America before the independence wars. He was captured and brutally executed in 1781, but the rising foreshadowed the struggles to come.

## 22 August 1791 — Start of the Haitian Revolution

Enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose in a mass revolt against slavery and colonial rule. The uprising grew into a full revolution, eventually led by Toussaint Louverture. It became the only slave revolt in history to found an independent state.

## 1 January 1804 — Haiti declares independence

After defeating French forces, the former colony declared independence as Haiti on 1 January 1804. It became the first nation created by a successful revolt of enslaved people.

## 25 March 1807 — Britain abolishes the Atlantic slave trade

Parliament banned the buying and selling of enslaved people across the British Empire after a long abolitionist campaign. The trade in human beings was outlawed, though slavery itself continued for another generation.

## 16 September 1810 — The Grito de Dolores opens Mexico's independence war

The priest Miguel Hidalgo issued a call to revolt against Spanish colonial rule, an event known as the Grito de Dolores. It sparked a long and bloody struggle for Mexican independence. The date is now celebrated as Mexico's national day.

## 5 July 1811 — Venezuela declares independence and the Bolivar wars begin

Venezuela declared independence from Spain, opening the long northern campaign led by Simon Bolivar. Early republics collapsed and the war swung back and forth for years. Bolivar became the central figure in liberating much of South America.

## 9 July 1816 — San Martin and Argentina's declaration of independence

The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata declared independence from Spain, a movement in which Jose de San Martin became the leading general. San Martin then led armies across the Andes to carry the fight into Chile and Peru. He and Bolivar together freed the southern and northern halves of Spanish South America.

## 7 August 1819 — Battle of Boyaca secures the north

Bolivar's victory at Boyaca broke Spanish power in New Granada and made possible the republic of Gran Colombia. It was a turning point in the northern independence campaign. The win opened the road to liberating the rest of the region.

## 27 September 1821 — Mexico achieves independence from Spain

After eleven years of war, Mexico won independence from Spain as royalist and rebel factions united behind the Plan of Iguala. The long conflict had begun with Hidalgo and continued through leaders like Morelos. Independence ended three centuries of Spanish colonial rule.

## 7 September 1822 — Brazil declares independence from Portugal

Pedro, heir to the Portuguese throne, declared Brazil independent and became its emperor. Unlike Spanish America, Brazil's break was relatively peaceful and kept a monarchy. It became the only large American nation to gain independence as an empire rather than a republic.

## 9 December 1824 — Battle of Ayacucho ends Spanish rule in South America

Forces under Antonio Jose de Sucre defeated the main Spanish army in the highlands of Peru. The victory effectively ended Spanish colonial rule on the South American mainland. It completed the independence wars begun more than a decade earlier.

## 28 August 1833 — Slavery abolished across the British Empire

The Slavery Abolition Act ended slavery across most of the British Empire, freeing around 800,000 people. The law compensated slave owners, not the formerly enslaved, a fact now widely criticized. Many freed people were still bound for years under an apprenticeship system.

## 19 July 1848 — Seneca Falls Convention

The first women's rights convention adopts the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence and demanding the vote. It launches the organized women's movement in the United States.

## 10 May 1857 to 1 November 1858 — Indian Rebellion of 1857

Sepoys of the East India Company army revolt and are joined by princes and peasants across northern India. Britain crushes the rising with great brutality and replaces Company rule with direct Crown rule.

## 1 January 1863 — The Emancipation Proclamation

President Lincoln declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate states to be free. It reframed the Civil War as a struggle over slavery, though it freed no one immediately in areas beyond Union control.

## 6 December 1865 — The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery in the United States

The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery throughout the United States, completing what the Emancipation Proclamation began. It freed around four million people. An exception for punishment of a crime later became the basis for debate over forced prison labor.

## 9 July 1868 — Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection

The Fourteenth Amendment made formerly enslaved people citizens and promised equal protection under the law. Its guarantees would later anchor the fight against segregation, though they were long ignored in practice.

## 3 February 1870 — The Fifteenth Amendment bars racial barriers to voting

The Fifteenth Amendment barred denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In practice, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence to keep Black men from voting for nearly a century. Its promise was only enforced with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

## 28 December 1885 — Founding of the Indian National Congress

Indian lawyers, journalists, and reformers found the Indian National Congress to seek a greater voice in British rule. It grows into the mass movement that leads India to independence.

## 19 September 1893 — New Zealand grants women the vote

New Zealand becomes the first self-governing country to grant women the right to vote in national elections. The victory becomes a landmark for suffrage movements worldwide.

## 24 February 1895 — The Cuban War of Independence and Jose Marti

Cuban fighters renewed their long struggle against Spanish rule, inspired by the writer and organizer Jose Marti, who was killed early in the fighting. Spain's harsh response, including camps that killed many civilians, drew wide condemnation. The war set the stage for US intervention in 1898.

## 25 April 1898 — The Spanish-American War ends Spanish rule in Cuba

The United States entered the Cuban conflict and quickly defeated Spain, which gave up Cuba along with Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba came under US military occupation rather than immediate independence. The war marked the rise of the United States as an overseas power.

## 23 July 1900 — First Pan-African Conference in London

Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams convened the first Pan-African Conference, drawing delegates of African descent from across the diaspora. W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the meeting and framed the coming century around what he called the color line. It began an organized tradition of Pan-African gatherings that later fed into independence movements.

## 20 May 1902 — Cuba becomes a republic under the Platt Amendment

Cuba became a formally independent republic after US occupation ended. Its independence was limited by the Platt Amendment, which let the United States intervene in Cuban affairs and keep a naval base at Guantanamo. Many Cubans saw it as compromised sovereignty rather than full freedom.

## 13 April 1919 — Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar

British troops under General Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd trapped in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds. The massacre shocked Indian opinion and destroyed much remaining faith in British rule. It pushed many moderates, including Gandhi, toward outright demands for independence.

## August 1920 — Gandhi launches the Non-Cooperation Movement

Mohandas Gandhi led a mass campaign to withdraw cooperation from British rule through boycotts of goods, schools, and offices. It turned the independence struggle into a mass movement based on nonviolent resistance. Gandhi suspended it in 1922 after a violent clash, but the method reshaped the campaign.

## 18 August 1920 — Women win the vote in Britain and the United States

The Nineteenth Amendment gave American women the right to vote, two years after Britain granted it to many women over 30. Both followed decades of campaigning, including militant protest and mass petitions. Britain extended the vote to women on equal terms with men in 1928.

## 12 March 1930 to April 1930 — Salt March

Mahatma Gandhi led a 24-day march to the coastal village of Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax and monopoly. The act of civil disobedience triggered a mass movement across India and drew international attention to the independence campaign. Tens of thousands were arrested, including Gandhi himself.

## 8 August 1942 — The Quit India Movement

Congress launched a mass campaign demanding an immediate end to British rule during the Second World War. The British responded by jailing Gandhi and most Congress leaders and suppressing protests. Though crushed in the short term, it showed British rule could no longer be sustained by consent.

## 15 August 1945 — Korea's liberation and division

Japan's surrender ended 35 years of colonial rule over Korea. Instead of full independence, the peninsula was split at the 38th parallel into Soviet and American zones of occupation. The division hardened into two rival states and led to the Korean War.

## 17 August 1945 — Sukarno proclaims Indonesian independence

Days after Japan's surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesia independent from Dutch colonial rule. The Netherlands tried to reassert control, leading to four years of armed and diplomatic struggle. The proclamation marked the birth of the Indonesian republic.

## 2 September 1945 — Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnamese independence

Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, declared Vietnam independent, quoting the American Declaration of Independence in his speech. France sought to restore colonial rule, leading to the First Indochina War. The declaration opened three decades of conflict over Vietnam's future.

## October 1945 — Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester

The Fifth Pan-African Congress brought together future leaders including Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. Unlike earlier meetings, it called openly for the end of colonial rule and for African self-government. Many of its delegates went on to lead independence campaigns in their home countries.

## 4 July 1946 — Philippine independence from the United States

The United States granted independence to the Philippines, following an earlier promise and the disruption of the Second World War. The country had been a US colony since Spain ceded it in 1898, after Filipino forces had already declared their own republic. Independence made it one of the first Asian colonies of the postwar era to become fully sovereign.

## 15 August 1947 — Indian independence and the Partition

British India became independent and was split into India and Pakistan along broadly religious lines. The partition triggered one of the largest and most violent mass migrations in history, with estimates of the dead ranging widely into the hundreds of thousands or more. Independence for the subcontinent stood as a turning point in the fall of the British Empire.

## 4 January 1948 — Burmese independence under Aung San's legacy

Burma became independent from Britain, choosing to leave the Commonwealth entirely. Its independence leader Aung San, who negotiated the terms, had been assassinated with much of his cabinet months earlier in 1947. The new nation soon faced ethnic conflicts that persist to this day.

## 4 February 1948 — Ceylon gains independence from Britain

Ceylon became independent from Britain through a peaceful, negotiated transition. Unlike neighboring India, its path avoided partition or mass violence at the moment of independence. The country was renamed Sri Lanka in 1972.

## 27 December 1949 — Dutch recognition of Indonesian independence

After a war and heavy international pressure, the Netherlands formally transferred sovereignty to Indonesia. Dutch military campaigns during the revolution were later the subject of official inquiries into abuses. The handover confirmed Indonesia as an independent nation.

## 20 October 1952 to 1960 — The Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya

A revolt among the Kikuyu against colonial land seizures was met with a harsh British crackdown, mass detention, and abuse in camps. The brutal suppression hastened the end of colonial rule in Kenya.

## 22 October 1953 — Laos becomes independent from France

France recognized Laos as a fully independent kingdom under a treaty of friendship. Full independence was confirmed by the 1954 Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War. The country soon fell into its own long civil conflict tied to the wider wars in the region.

## 9 November 1953 — Cambodia wins independence from France

King Norodom Sihanouk secured Cambodia's full independence from France through a campaign of pressure he called his royal crusade. It came as France's grip on Indochina weakened during the war with the Viet Minh. Independence was confirmed at the Geneva talks the next year.

## 7 May 1954 — French defeat at Dien Bien Phu

Viet Minh forces under General Giap overran the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu after a long siege. The defeat broke France's will to hold Indochina. It led directly to the Geneva talks and the end of French colonial rule in the region.

## 17 May 1954 — Brown v. Board of Education

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, argued the case. Many Southern school districts resisted the ruling for years, and full desegregation took over a decade to enforce in much of the South.

## 21 July 1954 — The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam

The Geneva Accords ended the First Indochina War and recognized the independence of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Vietnam was split at the 17th parallel pending elections that were never held. The division set the stage for the later Vietnam War.

## 1 November 1954 — Start of the Algerian War of Independence

The National Liberation Front (FLN) launched coordinated attacks against French rule, opening a brutal eight-year war. France treated Algeria as part of France itself, not a colony, which made the conflict especially bitter. Both sides used tactics later widely condemned, including French use of torture documented by later inquiries.

## 18 April 1955 — Bandung Conference

Leaders of newly independent Asian and African states met to oppose colonialism and Cold War domination. The conference gave voice to a growing non-aligned movement of the decolonizing world.

> "Never before had leaders of so many former colonies— their countries had 1.6 billion inhabitants, more than half of humanity— gathered to set a common course."
> — The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, p. 226-229

## 5 December 1955 — Montgomery bus boycott

Black residents of Montgomery boycotted the city's segregated bus system for over a year after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. The boycott was organized by the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. It ended when the Supreme Court ruled Montgomery's bus segregation unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle.

## 6 March 1957 — Ghana becomes the first sub-Saharan colony to win independence

Led by Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party, the Gold Coast became independent Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to break from European rule. Nkrumah tied Ghana's freedom to the wider liberation of the whole continent. The event became a model and a rallying point for independence movements across Africa.

## 31 August 1957 — Malaya gains independence from Britain

The Federation of Malaya became independent from Britain after a negotiated transition during a communist insurgency known as the Emergency. Independence came through political bargaining among its Malay, Chinese, and Indian communities. Malaya later joined with other territories to form Malaysia in 1963.

## 28 September 1958 — Guinea's 'No' to France under Sekou Toure

In a referendum on joining a reformed French Community, Guinea voted no under the leadership of Ahmed Sekou Toure, choosing immediate independence instead. France responded by withdrawing abruptly, pulling out staff and equipment. Guinea became independent in October 1958, the only French African colony to reject the Community outright.

## 1960 — The Year of Africa

Seventeen African colonies gained independence in a single year, most of them French. It marked the high point of the post-war wave of decolonization on the continent.

> "This speech was given by the author on 31 January 1990 in accepting an award from the New York State Senate naming him New York City Teacher of the Year."
> — Dumbing Us Down, p. 55-61

> "Miss M. was
selected as a Manhattan Teacher of the Year in 1985 and
was nominated the following year for the Woman of
Conscience Award given by the National Council of
Women."
> — Dumbing Us Down, p. 77-84

## 21 March 1960 — Sharpeville massacre in South Africa

South African police opened fire on a crowd protesting the apartheid pass laws, killing 69 people, many shot in the back. The killings drew global condemnation and pushed the ANC and PAC toward armed resistance. The date is now marked internationally as a day against racial discrimination.

## 30 June 1960 — Congo independence and the fall of Lumumba

The Belgian Congo became independent with Patrice Lumumba as its first prime minister. Within weeks the state fell into crisis with an army mutiny, the secession of Katanga, and foreign intervention. Lumumba was removed and, in January 1961, killed; later inquiries pointed to Belgian and Western complicity, and Belgium formally expressed regret in 2002.

## 1 October 1960 — Nigeria gains independence from Britain

Nigeria, Africa's most populous territory, became independent from Britain as a federation of regions. Its size and mix of peoples made it a major test case for post-colonial nation-building. Regional and ethnic tensions would later erupt into the Biafran civil war.

## February 1961 — Start of the Angolan war of independence and the MPLA

Uprisings against Portuguese rule opened a long war fought by rival movements, most prominently the MPLA. Portugal, unlike other European powers, refused to give up its African colonies. The war dragged on until Portugal's own government fell in 1974.

## 1 September 1961 — Founding of the Non-Aligned Movement

Leaders including Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah open the first summit of nonaligned states in Belgrade, founding a movement of countries refusing to join either Cold War bloc.

## 1 September 1961 — Start of the Eritrean war of independence

Armed fighters opened a struggle against Ethiopian rule after Eritrea's federation with Ethiopia was eroded and then annexed. The war lasted three decades, one of Africa's longest. It drew in Cold War backers on both sides before the fighters finally prevailed.

## 9 December 1961 — Tanganyika independence under Nyerere

Tanganyika became independent under Julius Nyerere and his TANU party through a largely peaceful campaign. Nyerere became a leading voice for African unity and later for a socialist model of self-reliance. In 1964 Tanganyika joined with Zanzibar to form Tanzania.

## 5 July 1962 — Algerian independence and the Evian Accords

After the Evian Accords and a referendum, Algeria became independent from France, ending 132 years of colonial rule. Estimates of the war dead vary widely and remain contested between French and Algerian sources. Hundreds of thousands of European settlers and pro-French Algerians fled in the aftermath.

## 25 May 1963 — Founding of the Organisation of African Unity

Leaders of 32 newly independent African states sign the OAU Charter in Addis Ababa to promote unity and complete decolonization of the continent. The date is celebrated as Africa Day.

## 28 August 1963 — The March on Washington and King's 'I Have a Dream' speech

More than 200,000 people gathered for jobs and freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech. The march built pressure for federal civil rights legislation. It became one of the defining moments of the American civil rights movement.

## 16 September 1963 — The formation of Malaysia

Malaya joined with Singapore, Sarawak, and North Borneo (Sabah) to form the new federation of Malaysia. Indonesia opposed it with a low-level armed confrontation known as Konfrontasi. Singapore left the federation two years later to become independent.

## 12 December 1963 — Kenya wins independence under KANU

Kenya became independent from Britain with Jomo Kenyatta and the Kenya African National Union leading the new government. It followed years of political organizing and the Mau Mau emergency. Kenya became a republic exactly one year later.

*Source: Kenya: A History Since Independence*

## 12 January 1964 — Zanzibar Revolution

revolution in Zanzibar in 1964

## 12 June 1964 — The Rivonia Trial and Mandela's life sentence

Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders were sentenced to life in prison for sabotage and plotting against the apartheid state. At the trial Mandela gave his 'I am prepared to die' speech, defending the turn to armed struggle after peaceful protest was met with force. The sentence removed the movement's leaders for a generation but made Mandela a global symbol of the struggle.

## 2 July 1964 — The US Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed, banning practices used to block Black Americans from voting. Together they marked the legislative peak of the civil rights movement.

## 25 September 1964 — FRELIMO launches the war for Mozambique

The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), led by Eduardo Mondlane, began an armed struggle against Portuguese rule. The guerrilla war gradually wore down Portuguese control of the countryside. Mozambique became independent in 1975 after the fall of Portugal's dictatorship.

## 7 March 1965 — The Selma to Montgomery marches

Marchers demanding voting rights were beaten by police on a bridge out of Selma, a day that became known as Bloody Sunday. Televised images of the violence shocked the country and built support for federal action. Within months Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

## 6 August 1965 — The Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act banned the literacy tests and other tactics used to keep Black Americans from voting in the South. Unlike the broader Civil Rights Act of the year before, it targeted the ballot directly and let the federal government oversee registration. Black voter registration rose sharply within a few years.

## 11 November 1965 — Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence

Rhodesia's white minority government declared independence to avoid handing power to the Black majority. The move led to sanctions and a long guerrilla war before majority rule arrived as Zimbabwe.

## 6 July 1967 — The Nigerian civil war and the fall of Biafra

The eastern region broke away as the Republic of Biafra, and Nigeria fought a war to hold the country together. A blockade caused mass starvation, and images of famine drew global attention; estimates of the dead, most from hunger, run from roughly one to three million and remain contested. Biafra collapsed in January 1970 and the region was reabsorbed into Nigeria.

## 10 May 1973 — The Polisario Front and the fight for Western Sahara

The Polisario Front formed to fight Spanish colonial rule in Western Sahara, and later Moroccan and Mauritanian control. It declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1976, recognized by some states and not by others. The territory's status remains disputed and largely unresolved.

## 24 September 1973 — Amilcar Cabral and the liberation of Guinea-Bissau

The PAIGC, founded by the theorist and organizer Amilcar Cabral, declared Guinea-Bissau independent after a successful guerrilla war against Portugal. Cabral was assassinated months before the declaration, in January 1973. His writing on culture and liberation influenced anti-colonial movements well beyond West Africa.

## 25 April 1974 — The Carnation Revolution triggers Portuguese decolonization

A near-bloodless military coup in Lisbon overthrew Portugal's long dictatorship, driven in part by exhaustion from its colonial wars. The new government moved quickly to grant independence to Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and other territories. It ended the last major European colonial empire in Africa.

## 6 November 1975 — The Green March and Spain's withdrawal from Western Sahara

Morocco sent hundreds of thousands of civilians marching into Western Sahara to claim the territory as Spain pulled out. Spain handed administration to Morocco and Mauritania rather than to the Sahrawis, against a World Court opinion favoring self-determination. The move triggered a long conflict with the Polisario Front and left the territory's future contested.

## 16 June 1976 — Soweto uprising against apartheid schooling

Thousands of Black schoolchildren protested being forced to learn in Afrikaans, and police killed hundreds, including 12-year-old Hector Pieterson. The uprising reignited resistance to apartheid at home and abroad.

## 18 April 1980 — Zimbabwe independence after the Rhodesian war

After a long guerrilla war against white-minority Rhodesian rule, Zimbabwe became independent under Robert Mugabe. The Lancaster House Agreement set the terms for majority rule and elections. Independence ended one of the last white settler governments in Africa.

## 31 August 1980 — Solidarity rises in Poland

Strikes at the Gdansk shipyard led to Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc, under Lech Walesa. The government banned it and imposed martial law, but the movement survived underground. Its return in 1989 helped bring down communist rule in Poland.

## 22 February 1986 — People Power topples Marcos in the Philippines

Huge nonviolent crowds filled the streets of Manila and forced the dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power. The largely peaceful uprising installed Corazon Aquino as president. It became a widely copied model of people-power revolution.

## 4 June 1989 — The Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown

Students and workers filled Beijing's Tiananmen Square for weeks calling for democratic reform and an end to corruption. The government sent in the army, killing protesters and bystanders in and around the square. The death toll is disputed and censored in China, with estimates ranging from a few hundred to several thousand.

## 23 August 1989 — The Baltic Way human chain

About two million people joined hands in a chain stretching across the three Baltic states to protest Soviet control. It marked 50 years since the pact that led to their annexation. The peaceful demonstration became a symbol of their drive to regain independence, achieved in 1991.

## 9 November 1989 — The 1989 revolutions and the fall of the Berlin Wall

A wave of mostly peaceful revolutions swept communist governments from power across Eastern Europe, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and others broke from Soviet control within months. The changes ended the Cold War division of Europe.

## 17 November 1989 — The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia

Mass peaceful protests, sparked by the beating of student demonstrators, brought down Czechoslovakia's communist government within weeks. The dissident playwright Vaclav Havel became president by year's end. Its near-bloodless course gave it the name the Velvet Revolution.

## 16 December 1989 — The Romanian Revolution topples Ceausescu

Protests that began in Timisoara spread nationwide and turned violent as security forces fired on crowds. Unlike the peaceful changes elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Romania's revolution was bloody, and the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed after a hasty trial. It ended communist rule in the country.

## 21 March 1990 — Namibia independence under SWAPO

Namibia became independent from South African control after a long struggle led by SWAPO and a United Nations-supervised transition. It was among the last African territories to gain independence. The settlement was tied to the wider end of regional conflicts in southern Africa.

## 24 May 1993 — Eritrea wins independence from Ethiopia

After a referendum in which Eritreans voted overwhelmingly for independence, Eritrea became a sovereign state. It followed the 1991 victory of Eritrean and allied Ethiopian rebels over the Derg government. Independence ended one of the continent's longest wars.

## 27 April 1994 — Mandela freed and the end of apartheid

South Africa held its first fully democratic election, and Nelson Mandela, freed in 1990 after 27 years in prison, became president. It ended decades of apartheid and the long ANC-led struggle against white-minority rule. The transition, though marked by violence, avoided the full civil war many had feared.