This week in history

April 10: 1864. The first Ukrainian professional theater under the Ruska Beseda [Ruthenian Conversation] Society was opened.

1995. In Beijing the heads of the military agencies of Ukraine and China signed an agreement On Military Cooperation and a framework document On Military Technical Cooperation.

April 11: 1945. American troops liberated the inmates of the Nazi death camps Buchenwald and Dora-Mittelbau.

1995. The Council of Directors of the World Bank approved a $114 million preferential credit for technical reconstruction of the Ukrainian electricity system.

April 12: 1653. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky concluded an alliance between Ukraine and Turkey.

1961. The Vostok spaceship piloted by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin conducted the world’s first manned orbital space flight.

April 13: 1940. Stage two of the deportation from Western Ukraine was started, involving 320,000 persons.

1945. Soviet troops took Vienna.

April 14: 1768. The Kolyivshchyna, the biggest revolt of the haidamaky in Ukraine against Polish rule under the leadership of Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Honta, began.

1944. In the course of Proskuriv-Chernivtsi military operation the troops of the First Ukrainian Front took Ternopil.

April 15: 1919. A Soviet state decree On Creating a System of Corrective Labor Camps began the GULAG.

1994. Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Economic Union of the CIS Countries as an associate member.

April 16: 1991. The Tenth Congress (and the first independent one) of the Writers of Ukraine was opened in Kyiv.

1995. Ukraine’s first direct international direct dialing telephone code, 380, was introduced.