Video: 'ABC News Update - Lithuania Declares Indpenedance - March 1990'

(Sunday, March 11, 1990, 10:44 p.m. Eastern European Time; during the Cold War) — Lithuania tonight proclaimed itself a sovereign state, legally free of the Soviet Union, and named the leaders of a non-Communist government to negotiate their future relations with Moscow.

The Lithuanian parliament voted 124 to 0, with 9 abstentions and absentees, to restore the independent statehood ended by Soviet annexation 50 years ago. The Lithuanian Communist Party, which won only a minority of seats in parliamentary elections last month, joined the non-Communist majority in the vote, and in an outburst of songs and embraces that followed.

“Expressing the will of the people, the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Republic declares and solemnly proclaims the restoration of the exercise of sovereign powers of the Lithuanian state, which were annulled by an alien power in 1940,” said a resolution passed late tonight. “From now on, Lithuania is once again an independent state.”