In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek junta-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'état, deposing Makarios III and installing Nikos Sampson as the president of Cyprus.

Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia and Lefkoşα, is the capital and largest city of Cyprus and is geographically located in Asia. It is the southeasternmost of all European Union member states' capital cities.

The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win.

A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.

Makarios III was a Greek Cypriot prelate and politician who served as Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus from 1950 to 1977 and as the first president of Cyprus between 1960 and July 1974, with a second term between December 1974 and 1977. He is widely regarded as the founding father or "Ethnarch" of the Republic of Cyprus, leading its transition from British colonial rule.

Nikos Sampson was a Greek-Cypriot journalist, militant and politician, who was installed as acting President of Cyprus during the 1974 coup.