Democratic Uprising

After the fall of the tyrant Hippias, rival aristocrat Isagoras allied with the Spartan king Cleomenes and expelled the reformer C...

The Somoza dynasty had ruled since the 1930s behind the National Guard. The corruption that followed the 1972 Managua earthquake a...

Corsicans had risen against Genoese rule repeatedly since 1729. In 1755 Pasquale Paoli proclaimed the Corsican Republic with a con...

Charles X ordinances dissolving the newly elected chamber, censoring the press, and restricting the franchise triggered barricade ...

Corruption scandals and a ban on reform banquets amid economic depression triggered protests in February 1848. Barricades rose acr...

News from Paris and Vienna ignited risings in Baden and Berlin in March 1848. Rulers granted constitutions, censorship fell, and t...

The April Laws of 1848 enacted by the Hungarian diet abolished serfdom and feudal privilege, established a responsible ministry, a...

On Bloody Sunday, 9 January 1905, troops fired on peaceful petitioners marching to the Winter Palace with Father Gapon, shattering...

War losses, inflation, transport breakdown, food shortages, and scandals at a court associated with Rasputin destroyed the legitim...

Destalinization after the Khrushchev secret speech emboldened reform communists and students. On 23 October huge crowds toppled th...

Alexander Dubcek became party leader in January 1968 and lifted censorship, eased travel, and began economic reform, seeking democ...

Fraud in the May 1989 local elections and the exodus of citizens through newly opened Hungary radicalized the opposition. Monday d...

The 17 November police crackdown on a student march, staged on the fiftieth anniversary of a Nazi-era student martyrdom, ignited n...

Forced relocation of the dissident pastor Laszlo Tokes sparked protests in Timisoara in mid-December 1989 that were bloodily suppr...

Song festivals, banned songs, and heritage movements became lawful vehicles of national revival under the cover of culture. The Ba...

Strikes at the Gdansk shipyard in 1980 created Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc, with nearly ten m...

Milosevic called early presidential elections for September 2000 expecting victory, but the united opposition behind Vojislav Kost...

The 2 November 2003 parliamentary elections were marred by massive fraud documented by domestic monitors and parallel vote tabulat...

The 21 November 2004 runoff between Viktor Yushchenko and the incumbent prime minister Viktor Yanukovych was stolen by systematic ...

Yanukovych refusal to sign the EU association agreement on 21 November 2013 brought students to the Maidan in Kiev. The 30 Novembe...

Railway nationalization protests in Sichuan in 1911 spiraled into national crisis. The accidental uprising at Wuchang on 10 Octobe...

The panchayat system installed in 1960 had banned parties and concentrated power in the palace. Growing protests through 1989, sha...

The fraudulent snap election of February 1986 and the defection of defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile and general Fidel Ramos trig...

Merchants hit by tariff concessions to foreigners, clergy angered by growing European influence, and intellectuals demanding the r...

The street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010 after police harassment, becoming the spark for nationw...

Police brutality, rigged elections, and mass youth unemployment primed the uprising, called for 25 January, national police day, b...

Schoolboys arrested and tortured in Daraa for anti-regime graffiti sparked demonstrations met with gunfire. Nonviolent protest com...

The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings inspired a day of rage on 17 February 2011 that was met with lethal fire. Benghazi fell to reb...

The 1976 decree forcing Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in Black schools crystallized resentment of Bantu education, designed...

The monarchy had been weakened by economic troubles, the British Ultimatum of 1890 over African territory, and the assassination o...

Protests by students, teachers, and workers forced the dictator Jorge Ubico to resign on 1 July 1944, and in October a revolt by y...

Syngman Rhee had ruled South Korea since 1948 with growing authoritarianism. The rigged presidential election of March 1960 sparke...

After the assassination of Park Chung-hee in 1979, General Chun Doo-hwan seized power and extended martial law. On 18 May 1980 stu...

Public anger at the Chun Doo-hwan regime grew after the death under police torture of the student Park Jong-chul in January 1987 w...

Economic collapse under the Burma Socialist Programme Party of Ne Win, including a demonetization that wiped out savings, led to s...

The death of the reformist leader Hu Yaobang in April 1989 sparked student gatherings in Tiananmen Square that grew into a protest...

Inspired by reform in the Soviet Union and the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, young activists such as Sanjaasurengiin Zori...

Akayev had led Kyrgyzstan since independence in 1991, but his government became increasingly associated with corruption and family...

Syrian forces had been present in Lebanon since the civil war of 1976 and exerted heavy influence over its politics. The killing o...

Rising bread and fuel prices sparked protests in Atbara in December 2018, which spread across Sudan and were led by the Sudanese P...

Blaise Compaore had ruled Burkina Faso since the 1987 coup in which Thomas Sankara was killed. When parliament prepared to vote on...