The Tbilisi massacre

What happened

Soviet troops break up a pro-independence demonstration on Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue with sapper spades and gas; about twenty die, most of them young women. The date becomes Georgia's day of national unity — and its independence movement's point of no return.

April 9 radicalised Georgian politics toward rapid independence under Zviad Gamsakhurdia — whose nationalism in turn alarmed Abkhazia and South Ossetia, feeding the secessions that would define the Georgian state's next three decades.

Confidence: High