Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web project and software on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. The first website, "info.cern.ch", is created. August 7 – Former Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar is assassinated in the Parisian suburb of Suresnes. August 8 – The Warsaw radio mast, the tallest structure in the world at the time, collapses. August 17 – The remains of the Prussian King Frederick the Great are re-interred in Potsdam, Germany. August 17 – 20 – Hurricane Bob hits North Carolina and New England, killing 17 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage. August 19 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in Crimea during an attempted coup. Led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven others, the coup collapses in less than 72 hours and is protested by over 100,000 people outside the parliament building. He returns to Moscow three days later and arrests the coup leaders. August 20 – Singing Revolution: Estonia declares independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Latvia the next day. August 22 – Singing Revolution: Iceland becomes the first nation to recognize the independence of the Baltic states. It is followed by the U.S. on September 2 and the Soviet Union on September 6. August 23 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Russia restores the white-blue-red tricolour as its national flag. August 24 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukraine declares independence, followed by Belarus the next day, from the Soviet Union. August 25 Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Serbian forces begin an attack on the Croatian town of Vukovar. Linus Torvalds posts messages to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix, regarding the new operating system kernel he had developed, called Linux. Michael Schumacher, regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers in history, makes his Formula One debut at the Belgian Grand Prix. August 29 – Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Maronite general Michel Aoun leaves Lebanon via a French ship into exile. August 30 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Azerbaijan. August 31 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declare their independence; Tajikistan follows suit on September 9. September September 3 – In Hamlet, North Carolina, a grease fire breaks out at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant, killing 25 people. September 4 – Sverdlovsk's name is restored to its pre-communist–era name Yekaterinburg. Two days later,