06-MAY-1951 :- BIRTH OF Samuel Doe , 21st President of Liberia .

Samuel Kanyon Doe 

(May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was the leader of Liberia from 1980 to 1990. He served as chairman of the People's Redemption Council and de facto head of state after staging a violent coup d'etat in 1980 where he killed the previous leader, William R. Tolbert, Jr., and executed many of his supporters. The constitution was disbanded and headed the country's military junta for the next five years. In 1985 he ordered an election as previously promised and officially became the 21st President of Liberia, despite heavy controversy sparked by evidence of election fraud. Nevertheless, he enjoyed decisive support from the United States thanks to the strategic anti-Soviet stance he had taken in the Cold War. He was the first indigenous head of state in Liberian history.

Doe was a member of the rural Krahn tribe from inland Liberia. The Krahn people are a minority ethnic group but, like the majority of Liberians, they are of indigenous descent. Liberians of indigenous descent were historically faced with economic and political marginalization by the Americo-Liberian elites, who were descended from the free-born and formerly enslaved blacks from America who founded Liberia in 1847.

Under Doe, Liberian ports were opened to Canadian, Chinese and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment from foreign shipping firms and earned Liberia a reputation as a tax haven.

Doe attempted to legitimize his regime with a new constitution in 1984 and elections in 1985. However, opposition to his rule only increased, especially after the 1985 elections which were declared to be fraudulent by foreign observers, except the US which supported the Doe regime. In the late 1980s, as fiscal austerity took hold in the United States and the threat of Communism declined with the waning of the Cold War, the U.S. became disenchanted with entrenched corruption in Doe's government and began cutting off critical foreign aid to Doe. This, combined with the popular anger generated by Doe's favoritism toward his native Krahn tribe, placed him in a very precarious position.

A civil war began in December 1989, when rebels entered Liberia through Côte d'Ivoire with the intent of capturing Doe. He was captured and overthrown on 9 September 1990. Following his capture, he was tortured before being executed.