On this night 30 years ago, Lithuania (which had declared independence 10 months earlier) faced its first test as a nation reaffirming its independence. The key events of the night of 12-13 January 1991 happened at Vilnius' TV Tower (seen today courtesy of @ukinlithuania)

[For clarification, on 11 March 1990 Lithuania did not so much declare its independence as a new state as reaffirm the independence declared in 1918, interrupted by the long Soviet occupation]

Soviet tanks rolled into central Vilnius between midnight and 1am, converging on the Tower in order to prevent broadcasting on behalf of the Supreme Council, the provisional government of independent Lithuania. The tanks began firing blank rounds

Just before 2am, Soviet soldiers encircled the Tower, which Lithuanians had gathered to protect, and began shooting civilians with live rounds. Tanks drove into the protesters, crushing several to death, while propaganda on loudspeakers urged Lithuanians to accept Soviet rule

Inside the Tower, journalists continued broadcasting to the last moment. 'We address all those who hear us,' the broadcasters declared, 'It is possible that [the Soviet army] can break us with force or close our mouths, but no one will make us renounce freedom and independence.'

Soldiers then broke in and stopped the broadcast. Meanwhile, in Kaunas (Lithuania's second city) a small TV studio began broadcasting on behalf of free Lithuania, until the broadcast was eventually picked up by a Swedish TV station that passed the news to the rest of the world

Meanwhile, Norway appealed to the United Nations against Soviet aggression on behalf of Lithuania

Back in Vilnius, Lithuanians encircled the Seimas building where the Supreme Council was in session, building makeshift barricades. The Supreme Council urged people to leave for their own safety. They remained, in defiance of both the USSR and their own government

Vytautas Landsbergis, Chairman of the Supreme Council, later learnt that the only reason the Soviets did not ram the barricades with tanks was the sheer number of people present; the optics were too bad for the USSR

The crowd's refusal to leave saved Lithuanian independence; Lithuania had no other ability, at the time, to defend itself from the USSR. The events of 13 January 1991 remain a remarkable example of nonviolent resistance in the cause of freedom, in which 14 people gave their lives