This day in history

1848: Centralna rada narodowa (Central Popular Council), a Polish aristocratic and religious organization, is formed in Galicia (Halychyna), then part of Austria-Hungary.

1849: A.I. Voyeykov Main Observatory is founded in St. Petersburg.

1919: Red Army troops enter Yalta in the Crimea.

1932: The Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) of the USSR adopts a decree that the construction of the first 1,000-km-long section of Baikal-Amur Railroad should be launched.

1940: The NKVD USSR starts the second round of deportation from the western regions of Ukraine that involved the total of 320,000 persons.

1944: Troops of the Fourth Ukrainian Front liberate Simferopol as part of the Crimean Offensive.

1945: Soviet troops take Vienna after a series of pitched battles with the Wehrmacht.

1995: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts an appeal to the State Duma of the Russian Federation concerning the so-called Crimean issue.