This day in history

1918: Soviet Russia’s Sovnarkom (Russ. acronym for the Soviet/Council of People’s Commissars) adopts the Decree “On the Liquidation of Private Railroad Companies.”

1928: Soviet Ukraine’s Radnarkom (Ukr. acronym ditto) adopts a new, standardized Ukrainian alphabet [worked out by Mykola Skrypnyk as a compromise between the Soviet and Russian orthographies; also known as the Kharkiv orthography, or Skrypnykivka].

1938: Soviet TU-104-A passenger jet liner starts flying the longest Moscow – New-York – Moscow route.

1965: Ukrainian intellectuals gather for a rally of protest against a new round of political repressions at Kyiv’s Ukraina Movie Theater, during the premiere of [Parajanov’s] Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

1989: Kyiv hosts a UN seminar on multilateral measures to strengthen confidence and to prevent war.

1991: The true blue-and-yellow National Flag is unfurled on top of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

1991: The Crimean parliament adopts a declaration of state sovereignty.