The central business district of Tallinn, the capital and largest city of Estonia. *Photo from Wikipedia
August 20 is Restoration of Independence Day, re-declaration of the independence of Estonia from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Following centuries of successive Teutonic (The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem), Danish, Swedish, and Russian rule, Estonians experienced a national awakening that culminated in independence from the Russian Empire towards the end of World War I. In the aftermath of the war and the Russian revolutions, the Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued in February 1918.
During World War II, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, then Nazi Germany a year later and again annexed by the Soviets in 1944, after which it was reconstituted as the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1988, during the Singing Revolution, the Estonian SSR issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration in defiance of the illegal Soviet rule, and independence was restored on August 20, 1991.
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Russia. Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north.
*Reference: Wikipedia
