On this day in ...... 1980 (30 years ago today), 28-year-old Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe seized power following a "surprise" coup in Liberia, during which the democratically elected President, William R. Tolbert Jr., was killed at the executive mansion. The New York Times reported that the coup occurred 3 days after Amnesty International released a report criticizing the Tolbert regime for a "'crackdown'" against opposition party members. Pictured at right (credit) with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1982, Doe would be killed 10 years later amid a civil war led by Charles Taylor, now on trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
(Prior April 12 posts are here, here, and here)
