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On 21 June 1940 in Riga, General Ludvigs Bolšteins, commander of Latvia’s Border Guard Brigade and one of the builders of Latvia’s border guard system, died by suicide. It happened a few days after the beginning of the Soviet occupation and about an hour after his meeting with the newly appointed interior minister Vilis Lācis. The National Encyclopedia states that he shot himself in his office at the Ministry of the Interior, leaving a note that cited the destruction of Latvia’s independence as the reason.

On 20 June 1922, Latvia’s Constitutional Assembly adopted the Law on the Entry into Force and Implementation of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia. This short but decisive act stipulated that the Constitution adopted on 15 February would enter into force at noon on 7 November 1922, when the 1st Saeima convened; it also provided for the first Saeima elections on 7–8 October and the creation of the Central Election Commission.

In 1919, on 19 June, the decisive second phase of the Battles of Cēsis began. Near Cēsis, the Estonian Army and units of the Northern Latvian Brigade under its operational command, including the 2nd Cēsis Infantry Regiment, faced the Baltic Landeswehr and Germany’s Iron Division, which were subordinated to Andrievs Niedra’s government. This phase of fighting ended with a Latvian and Estonian victory, the collapse of Niedra’s government, and the restoration of Kārlis Ulmanis’s Provisional Government.

On 18 June 1940, Soviet Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Andrey Vyshinsky arrived in Riga – Stalin’s emissary who began forming a puppet government imposed on Latvia. This happened one day after the Red Army entered Latvia and became one of the decisive steps in the staged legalisation of the occupation. Formally, Vyshinsky discussed the cabinet’s composition with Kārlis Ulmanis, but the candidates had already been coordinated within Soviet embassy and secret-police circles.

On 17 June 1999, the 7th Saeima elected Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga President of Latvia at an extraordinary sitting. After several unsuccessful voting rounds on party candidates, 53 MPs voted for the non-party psychology professor and folklore scholar from Canada. Latvia thus gained its first woman head of state — a president whose tenure later became closely associated with Latvia’s path toward NATO and the European Union.

On 16 June 1940, the USSR issued an ultimatum to Latvia, demanding the resignation of Kārlis Ulmanis’s government, the formation of a Moscow-loyal government, and the unrestricted entry of additional Red Army forces. That same evening, in a militarily and diplomatically isolated situation, the Cabinet accepted the demands. The next morning Soviet troops crossed Latvia’s border, and the decision of 16 June became the direct prelude to Latvia’s occupation and annexation.