On this day Patrice Lumumba the first Prime Minister of the independent state of the Congo was executed in what has been termed as the most important assassination of the 20th century took place. After being flown to leopdaville , he was humiliated in front of his wife and child before being being driven to a military camp where he was eventually murdered on January 17, 1961. In his final letter to his wife he wrote: "Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me