From 27–28 April 1978, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew President Mohammad Daoud Khan in a violent coup d’état, depositing him and his family in the presidential palace in Kabul and executing many of them. The coup led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It triggered widespread purges of Daoud’s supporters, alignment of the new government with the Soviet Union, and a political trajectory that would lead to Soviet military intervention less than two years later. The Saur Revolution is widely regarded as a turning point in Afghan history because it shifted the country into decades of conflict.
