August 19 - Yeltsin stops KGB Coup

Nothing too inspiring today, so it�s a lazy job. Wait for tomorrow and for not one, but two Byzantine battles !

14 AD Gaius Julius Ceasar Octavianus, Augustus, and first Roman Emperor dies. He is succeeded by his stepson Tiberius. (There is an excellent article on Roman history on AE�s main page.)
AE's Roman history

1692 Five women were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft during the famous �Salem Witch Trials�. Fourteen more people were executed that year and 150 others are imprisoned.



The Salem Witch Trials

1942: An Allied force of 7,000 men carries out a daytime raid against German positions at the French seaport of Dieppe. Aided by tanks and aircraft, the commando force--5,000 Canadians, 2,000 British soldiers, and a handful of American and Free French troops--gained a foothold on the beach in the face of a furious German defense. During nine hours of fighting, the Allies failed to destroy more than a handful of their targets and suffered 3,600 dead.

1953 The government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran is overthrown with the help of the CIA and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is reinstated. (How times have changed! These days the USA wouldn�t dare to interfere with Iranian domestic politics.)


1991 Soviet hardliners, Janajev and the KGB, attempt to overthrow President Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup - putting tanks on the streets of Moscow, banning demonstrations and imposing a state of emergency. Boris Yeltsin jumps on a tank and asks the people of the Soviet-Union to support their president, to come out in a general strike and hand over any spare bottles of Vodka . The coup is declared a failure less than 48 hours later and Yeltsin throws one heck of a party.




Boris Yeltsin's heroic moment (Please note the cleverly disguised Vodka refrigeration units on the tank!)

In my opinion, witch hunting is really just ridiculous. You could be accused for anything from being prettier than a jealous girl to being an actual witch. What kind of foolishness is that?