This day in history

1918: The Soviet Russia’s Council of People’s Commissars passes a resolution to separate the church from the state and the school from the church.

1943: Soviet troops finally defeat the Nazi German troops in the Battle of Stalingrad.

1943: The Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet resolves to institute the medal “To the Great Patriotic War Partisan,” 1st and 2nd degrees.

1961: The Kharkiv Heavy Machine-Building Plant manufactures a TE-30 bisectional mainline diesel locomotive.

1962: The first syzygy in 400 years: eight out of the nine known planets align.

1976: Ukraine’s largest poultry farm, Horodenkivska, is commissioned in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast.

2000: The president of Ukraine publishes his address to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine entitled “Ukraine: Progress toward the 21st Century. The Strategy of Economic and Social Policies in 2000–2004.”