This week in history

March 21: 1927. The first issue of Literaturna hazeta (Literaturna Ukrayina from 1962) was printed.

1982. US President Ronald Reagan signed a document proclaiming Ukrainian Helsinki Group Day, the first US presidential act concerning Ukraine only.

March 22: 1654. Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s envoys went to Moscow for talks to identify the status of Sich Cossacks in the Russian state.

1994. The National Bank of Ukraine’s banknote factory was commissioned in Kyiv.

March 23: 1944. The Central Republican Botanical Gardens was created in Kyiv under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.

1994. Ukraine and the European Union signed in Brussels their Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation.

March 24: 1918. The Ukrainian People’s Republic made Ukrainian the official language by law.

1935. A monument to Taras Shevchenko was unveiled in Kharkiv.

March 15: 1651. Colonel Ivan Bohun’s troops routed a Polish army near Vinnytsia.

1993. The National Central Interpol Bureau for Ukraine was founded.

March 26: 1944. Soviet troops launched the Odesa Offensive to take Mykolayiv and Odesa oblasts. 1996. Ukraine joined the General Assembly of the European Quality Organization in Vienna.

March 27: 1793. Russian Empress Catherine II signed the manifesto whereby Russia annexed Right-Bank Ukraine in the second partition of Poland.

1943. The Ukrainian SSR Council of People’s Commissars decided to establish the T. H. Shevchenko State Literary and Art Museum.