On this day, 14 September 1960, a US-backed coup took place in Congo against the first democratically elected prime minister in the country, socialist independence leader Patrice Lumumba. The CIA initially planned to assassinate him – one plot involved poisoning his toothpaste – but instead he was arrested, beaten, tortured and then shot. Soldiers from the former ruling Belgian authorities then dug up his body, dismembered it and dissolved it in sulphuric acid, grinding what was left to powder and scattering it.
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