This week in history

Dec. 12 1818: The Institute for Young Ladies of Noble Birth opens in Poltava.

1988: The first test flight of the AN-225 (Mria) cargo aircraft takes place in Kyiv.

Dec. 13 1941: The Nazis arrest Ukrainian intellectuals who are active members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

2004: Specialists at the Rudolfinerhaus Clinic in Austria announce their final diagnosis: Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned.

Dec. 14 1918: Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky of Ukraine abdicates and his government surrenders power to the Directory of the UNR.

2004: The Friendship Train leaves Kyiv, heading for Ukraine’s eastern, southern, and northern regions, to tell the residents of these oblasts the truth about the Maidan.

Dec. 15 1932: The Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine adopts a resolution banning supplies and sales of industrial goods in 82 districts that have not completed their grain delivery schedules.

2004 : As a result of the stabilization of the loan and currency market situation, the National Bank of Ukraine allows the free sale and purchase of US dollars.

Dec. 16 1917: The Council of People’s Commissars adopts the “Manifesto to the Ukrainian People with an Ultimatum to the Ukrainian Rada,” stating that if it is not carried out within 48 hours, Russia will declare war on Ukraine.

2004: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passes a resolution declaring that all those responsible for falsifying the presidential elections in Ukraine must be brought to justice.

Dec. 17 1897: The first steam locomotive is built at the Kharkiv Locomotive Works.

2004: A roundtable in Kyiv notes that the Orange Revolution has caused an information revolution in the Ukrainian media.

Dec. 18 1942: The capture of the village of Pivnivka by Soviet troops launches the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazi Germans.

2004 The Associated Press circulatess two versions of Viktor Yushchenko’s interview about his poisoning.