Today in History - June 26: Superpower's leader toppled with the press of a button
The unofficial leader of the Soviet Union was toppled in a party coup on June 26, 1953.
Lavrentiy Beria (left) was arrested at a meeting of the Politburo, in a conspiracy orchestrated by party official Nikita Khrushchev (centre).
According to the most reliable reports, Khrushchev stood up and accused Beria of being a traitor and spy.
Beria had taken control of the Soviet leadership immediately after the death of Joseph Stalin three months earlier.
As the head of the USSR's secret police, Beria had gathered compromising information about any potential rivals to his leadership.
He had also orchestrated Stalin's regime of murder, mass imprisonment and genocide that had ordinary Soviet citizens living in terror.
As his main untoppled rival, Khrushchev organised the rest of the Politburo, as well as the official head of state Georgy Malenkov (left), to oust Beria.
As Khrushchev confronted Beria, Malenkov pressed a button that had been installed under his seat at the table.
The button signalled for Marshal Georgy Zhukov and a group of other senior military officers to burst into the room.
Because Beria's guards were surrounding the Kremlin, he was smuggled out of the facility in the boot of a car.
Elvis Presley performed at his last ever concert on June 26, 1977 in the US city of Indianapolis.
A few weeks later he died. He was 42.
A pilot flying over remote South Australia spotted a huge geoglyph on the desert surface, on June 26, 1998, in what became a discovery that fascinated Australians.
Known as The Marree Man, the 3.5-kilometre-long figure of an ancient hunter can only be seen from the air.
But just who built the gargantuan earth drawing remains a mystery to this day, Theories about the origins of the geoglyph include it being a parting gift from the US military that trained nearby. Other suggestions say it was the work of Aboriginal artists, hoaxers or even aliens.
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