This day in history

1820: Prince Oleksandr Bezborodko finances the establishment of the so-called Gymnasium of Higher Knowledge in Nizhyn (now Nizhyn Gogol State University).

1884: Isaak Mazepa, Ukrainian public and political figure, historian, member of the Central Rada, is born in Novhorod-Siversky.

1914: The Supreme Ukrainian Rada issues a manifesto urging the Ukrainian people to struggle on for national liberation.

1941: Soviet Supreme Command Headquarters issues Directive No.270, whereby command officers and politruk [NKVD-controlled and empowered. – Ed.] propaganda officers, if and when captured by the Wehrmacht, are to be regarded as deserters and their families arrested and exiled.

1941: Pitched battles between the Soviet and Wehrmacht troops at the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia bridgeheads.

1945: The Soviet Union and Poland sign the Border Agreement whereby the frontier line runs alongside the river Buh and east from the river Sian.

1957: The Fourth Congress of the World Federation of Democratic Youth is held in Kyiv.