This week in history

Oct. 30 1708: Peter I issues a decree in which he promises not to persecute the Zaporozhian Host in any way and invites Cossack officers to a council in Hlukhiv to elect a hetman.

2001: Ukraine’s last ICBM silo is destroyed.

Oct. 31 1995: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passes a bill on joining the Statute of the Council of Europe.

1999: Presidential elections are held in Ukraine. Since none of the candidates have obtained the required number of votes, another round is scheduled with two nominees: Leonid Kuchma and Petro Symonenko.

Nov. 1 1966: Antei, the world’s largest cargo aircraft and airbus, developed by Kyiv’s Antonov Aircraft Design Bureau, is launched into serial production.

1991: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Nationalities’.

Nov. 2 1941: The Radianska Ukraina (Soviet Ukraine) radio station starts broadcasting from Moscow.

1973. The first line of the 3600 thin-sheet rolling mill is launched at the Azovstal Steel Works.

Nov. 3 1918: Bukovyna’s popular assembly votes in favor of annexing Northern Bukovyna to Ukraine.

1943: Troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front launch an offensive, in the course of which Kyiv is liberated and a strategic bridgehead is created on the right bank of the Dnipro, in the vicinity of Kyiv.

Nov. 4 1959: The diorama “The Storming of Mt. Sapun” opens in Sevastopil.

1990. For the first time in Ukrainian history Holodomor Remembrance Day is observed throughout the country.

Nov. 5 1920: In Warsaw, the government of the Ukrainian National Republic signs a convention with the Russian Political Committee on joint military operations against the Bolsheviks.

1953: Yevhen Paton’s all-welded bridge — the Soviet Union’s first design of this kind — is inaugurated in Kyiv.