WHAT ALL HAPPENED MAY TO AUGUST 1991
Find out what all happened May to August 1991

Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet. (6. August 1991)

Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux. (25. August 1991)

Sonic the Hedgehog , the first game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series is released for the Sega Genesis in North America. (23. June 1991)

Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic. (12. June 1991)

Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union. (31. August 1991)

The Greek cruise ship MTS Oceanos sinks off the Wild Coast of South Africa. (4. August 1991)

Apartheid: the South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. (17. June 1991)

The capital city of Addis Ababa falls to the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, ending both the Derg regime in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Civil War. (28. May 1991)

Libero Grassi, an Italian businessman from Palermo is killed by the Mafia after taking a solitary stand against their extortion demands. (29. August 1991)

Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party. (29. August 1991)

Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: more than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. (20. August 1991)

In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. In the end, over 800 people die. (15. June 1991)

The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses. (8. August 1991)

Édith Cresson becomes France's first female prime minister. (15. May 1991)

Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end. (21. May 1991)

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom addresses a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress. (16. May 1991)

A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shoot a Salvadoran man. (5. May 1991)

Lauda Air Flight 004, a Boeing 767, crashes in an area of western Thailand after a thrust reverser malfunction. All 223 people aboard are killed. (26. May 1991)

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, starts "The Great Gage Park Decency Drive" picketing the park, starting their notorious picketing campaign that would later include funerals of AIDS victims and fallen American military. (30. June 1991)

Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union. (24. August 1991)