1990: Lech Wa??sa elected president of Poland.
On this day in 1990, Lech Wa??sa—who had led Solidarity, Poland's first independent trade union, and had received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983—won Poland's first direct presidential election by a landslide.
| 1998: | | The United Nations General Assembly declared anti-Semitism a form of racism. |
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| 1990: | | Slobodan Milo?evi? was reelected president of Serbia at the head of the Socialist Party, formerly the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS). |
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| 1961: | | | Tanganyika became independent, with Julius Nyerere as its first prime minister, and in 1964 the territory united with the island of Zanzibar to form Tanzania. |
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| 1958: | | The John Birch Society was founded in the United States by Robert H.W. Welch, Jr. |
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| 1824: | | Revolutionary forces under the leadership of Venezuelan Antonio José de Sucre defeated the Spanish royal army at the Battle of Ayacucho. |
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