This week in history

April 1, 1906: the International Convention on Protection of Birds is signed (currently this date is marked as International Birds Day). April 1, 1917: Ukrainian public and political organizations in St. Petersburg set up the Ukrainian National Council. April 2: International Children’s Book Day (marked on Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday). April 2, 1596: Sovereign Nalyvaiko’s Ukrainian rebel force attacks Polish Hetman Zolkiewski’s regular troops in Kyiv province. April 3, 1919: the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR adopts a Decree nationalizing Falz-Fein’s former estates Askania Nova and Elisabetveld, uniting the territories into a national park. April 3, 1990: the golden-blue Ukrainian National Flag is unfurled over the City Hall in Lviv. April 4, 1113: Prince Volodymer Monomakh defeats the Polovtsi at Solonitsa. April 4, 1996: Ukrainian Parliament passes the Law “On the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea.” April 5, 1782: Austrian Emperor Joseph II decrees the liquidation of the peasants’ personal dependence as the first step toward the emancipation of serfs in Galicia. April 6, 1903: a Jewish pogrom breaks out on the first day of Easter in Kishinev (Moldavia). April 6, 1992: the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine resolves to prepare a multi-volume scientific edition on victims of purges in Ukraine. April 7, 1989: a Memorial plaque dedicated to heroic Soviet and Polish officers and men during World War II is unveiled in Kyiv. April 7, 1990: a nonprofit charitable organization, the Ukrainian-US Renaissance Foundation, is founded in Kyiv.