Today in History: A military coup that later led to the division of Cyprus took place in Greece

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 21:

1910 – American novelist Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) died. His masterpieces “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” were drawn from his boyhood experiences.

1918 – Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Germany’s top aviator in World War One, was killed in action. Known as “The Red Baron”, he shot down 80 enemy aircraft.

1960 – Brasilia became Brazil’s new capital.

1967 – A military coup in Athens, Greece established the regime of a group of “Greek Colonels” who overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections. Later in 1974, they tried to unite the island with mainland Greece which led to a Turkish intervention and the division of the island between Turkish Northern Cyprus and the Greek southern Cyprus. Cyprus remains divided to this day.

1971 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, president of Haiti since 1957, died. He ran the country as a dictatorship and created a gangster militia known as the Tontons Macoutes.

1989 – Tens of thousands of students and workers poured into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in defiance of official warnings against anti-government protests.

2002 – Thousands took to the streets to protest against the shock success of the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the French presidential election.

2003 – The American singer Nina Simone died aged 70. Her smoky tones gave voice to the American civil rights movement and her repertoire ranged from gospel to George Gershwin.

2004 – Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was freed after 18 years in an Israeli jail, saying he was proud to have revealed secrets exposing the Jewish state as an atomic power.

2006 – Nepal’s King Gyanendra agreed to restore political power to the people, a year after sacking the government.

2016 – Musician Prince dies.

(Reuters)