1984 — Lansana Conté Seizes Power

On April 3, 1984, Colonel Lansana Conté struck before dawn, seizing power in Guinea hours before the ruling party's Politburo could choose a successor to Ahmed Sékou Touré. The bloodless coup suspended the constitution and dissolved the single party. Named president two days later, Conté would go on to rule Guinea until his death in 2008, a span of nearly a quarter century.

The coup's first celebrated act was flinging open the gates of the notorious Camp Boiro prison. That gesture invited some 200,000 exiled Guineans home. For those returning families, the opening of the prison marked the moment a long exile finally began to end.