THROWBACKTHISDAY, JAN 13; Coup d'état in Togo results in assassination of president Sylvanus Olympio.

                                               

The 1963 Togolese coup d'état was a military coup that occurred in the country of Togo on 13 January 1963. The coup leaders (notably Emmanuel Bodjolle, Étienne Eyadéma and Kléber Dadjo) took over government buildings, arrested most of the cabinet, and assassinated Togo's first President, Sylvanus Olympio, outside the American embassy in Lomé. The coup leaders quickly brought Nicolas Grunitzky and Antoine Meatchi, both of whom were exiled political opponents of Olympio, together to form a new government. While the government of Ghana and its President Kwame Nkrumah were implicated in the coup and assassination of Olympio, full investigation was never completed and the international outcry eventually died down. The event was important as the first coup d'état in the French and British colonies of Africa that achieved independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and Olympio is remembered as one of the first heads of state to be assassinated during a military coup in Africa.

THROWBACKTHISDAY; makes it 53 years and TBT Blog remembers.