ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was this weird announcement on Russian radio that, basically, these right-wing coup plotters, these right-wing government officials were putting out this statement that Mikhail Gorbachev was sick, that they were declaring an emergency rule, not to worry. And then, in the meantime, you know, when that announcement wasn't playing, you were hearing "Swan Lake," which was always a sure sign in Russia that something really bad was going on. And all of a sudden we can see that there is tanks rolling in from over the bridge.</s>STEVE HURST, FMR. CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: One of the tanks that had actually been sent into the city by the coup leaders, Yeltsin clamored aboard and gave a very, very hot speech declaring that this was unconstitutional, that these men were doing everything wrong, and that the Soviet people must rise up and not let this happen. As the protesters continued to form and gather at the Russian White House, eventually the Taman Tank Division, which had been sent to the Russian White House, the guys turned coat and actually became defenders of this whole group of protesters, and Boris Yeltsin at the White House. It was a strange thing. It was a coup that actually happened only in Moscow. People outside of Moscow in the hinterlands, many of them never even knew about it until after it was over.
CNN 20: Failed Coup Against Gorbachev, August 21, 1991