This week in history

April 11: 1944. Soviet troops took Kerch in the course of the Crimean offensive operation.

1945. Inmates of the Buchenwald and Dora Nazi concentration camps were liberated. This is now observed as International Day of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camp Inmates.

April 12: 1653. Ukrainian Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky concluded an alliance with Turkey.

1961. Pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, Yuri Gagarin, made the world’s first manned orbital space flight.

1945. Soviet troops took Vienna.

April 14: 1768. Ukrainian haidamaky, led by Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Honta, staged the greatest-ever uprising against Polish domination, the Koliyivshchyna.

1936. Polish police dispersed a working-class demonstration in Lviv.

April 15: 1799. A battle began near the Adla River between the Russian-Austrian troops commanded by Aleksandr Suvorov and the French army.

1994. In Moscow, at a summit of CIS heads of state, Ukraine joined the Treaty on Economic Union of the CIS States as an associate member.

April 16: 1934. The USSR Central Executive Committee instituted the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union

1995. Ukraine’s direct international code, 380, began to function.

April 17: 1917. The Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party held its conference in Kyiv.

1991. The Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR passed a law on the rehabilitation of the victims of political repression in Ukraine.