This day in history

1863: The local branch of the Russian Musical Society opens in Kyiv.

1867: Kyiv’s Opera House (now the National Opera of Ukraine) opens its first season with Aleksei Verstovsky’s opera Askold’s Grave.

1909: The Kyiv Association of Aeronautics holds its foundation meeting.

1920: The Perekop-Chongar Operation is launched in the Crimea.

1927: The 650,000-horse-power Dnipro Hydroelectric Station is laid.

1927: Kharkiv unveils the first state-run national exhibit “10 Years of October.”

1935: Chernihiv opens the Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky Literary and Memorial Museum.

1941: The raid of a partisan detachment commanded by Ivan Kopienkin across nine districts of Poltava oblast comes to a close.

2004: President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland announces that democracy is steadily developing in Ukraine, of which the Ukrainian presidential elections are ample proof.