Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years in prison on this day after he admitted to espionage. The Lockheed U-2 plane he was flying on an intelligence gathering mission, was shot down over Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains.

President Gorbachev was being held under house arrest at his holiday home in the Crimea, Soviet radio announced.

It was claimed that the leader was "unable to perform his presidential duty for health reasons". Soviet television then started denouncing his policies.

The new leader was Gennady Yanayev.

Amongst the protesters against the Communist coup, president of the Russian federation, Boris Yeltsin, climbed onto a tank outside the Kremlin to urge the army not to turn on the people.

Yeltsin said the coup was a "new reign of terror" and urged the people to resist the takeover.

In the USA, President George H Bush cut short his holiday because of the crisis.

The coup failed 2 days later.