Friday was a tense day for the Islamist strongman President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When the Turkish military mounted a coup attempt the President initially bunked down in a hotel and in a fascinating use of technology used FaceTime to rile his supporters up to help shut down the military’s attempt to take control. Tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers (APC’s) were faced down in the streets by Erdogan supporters who stood, and laid in front of them placing themselves in harms way to keep the military from securing strategic positions in front of Ataturk Airport and in Ankara. Erdogan eventually made it to his private jet and was able to take off and made his way to Germany to request asylum. Evidently someone has grown some stones in Deutschland because his jet was denied landing rights and was forced to fly back to Istanbul to circle while the coup attempt played out.

Evidently this is nothing new for Turkey, a country long torn between East and West that had considered itself more aligned with secular Europe than the Islamic Middle East for decades. Whenever things are not going well under elected rulers it seems that the military makes a move and executes a coup.

In 1960 38 military officers staged a successful coup and executed the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Then again in 1971 when inflation reached nearly 80% the military issued walking papers to the country’s leader Suleyman Demirel who took the hint and stepped down within hours. In September of 1980 history repeated itself when the military announced that it had declared martial law and was dissolving the government, after which the military ruled the nation for three years. In 1997 Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, also an Islamist, was forced to resign by the military leadership.

Unfortunately Friday’s coup was bloody as the military actively attacked the civilian populations of both Istanbul and Ankara with tanks, jets and guns. Here is a timeline of the coup from a posting on CNN.com:

“Military closes Istanbul bridges: Two bridges in Istanbul are closed in one direction by the military. Cars are flowing from the European side of the city to the Asian, but soldiers and military vehicles are blocking the path to the European side.

Hundreds in public square: A CNN producer said there were 200 to 300 residents in Taksim Square in Istanbul, some of them were waving Turkish flags. At least one army tank and one other military vehicle were at the square. Video and photos posted on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook showed large crowds marching through the streets and taunting soldiers — while Turkish military fire their guns in the air.

About 100 police officers were shooting off tear gas, trying to disperse the crowd and explosions and gunfire were heard in the streets.

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Social media outages: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all experienced interruptions or outages.

Turkey Blocks, a group that tracks censorship in Turkey, tweeted that all three services were blocked in the country as of 10:50 pm local time. Dyn, another service that tracks Internet performance globally, reported that Facebook and Twitter were blocked for “about an hour.”

Gunshots near the presidential complex: Gunfire was heard around the presidential complex in the capital Ankara, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported, citing witnesses. Anadolu reported that helicopters have opened fire at the national intelligence headquarters in Ankara.

Turkish fighter jet shot down: A Turkish F-16 fighter jet has shot down a helicopter used by coup plotters over Ankara, according to CNN affiliate CNN Turk.

All flights canceled: While a few flights have landed in the last hour, Turkish airlines flight status boards shows that all flights out of Istanbul have been canceled or marked indefinitely delayed for tonight. Flight websites show no departing flights from Istanbul.

Troops take control of state media: Turkish state broadcaster TRT was taken over by a faction of the military that was part of the coup attempt. After the military was ejected, Tijen Karas, the female anchor who said she was forced to read the military statement earlier in the evening, told the crowd around her: “We were taken over. I was forced by men with arms and they told us that they would not harm us if we did as told.”

CNN Turk, which is part of the same broadcast center, reported that soldier have entered their building in the Dogan Media Center. “That’s it, we now have to go.” The studio is now being emptied.”