This day in history

1918:German occupation authority in Kyiv disarms a Ukrainian division organized in the German city of Rastatt, manned by Ukrainian prisoners of WW I.

1926: Joseph Stalin addresses a message to Lazar Kaganovich and other members of the Ukrainian Communist Party’s Politburo, lashing out at Mykola Khvyliovy and Oleksandr Shumsky, thus launching a campaign against “national deviationism.”

1945: Ukraine becomes a founding member of the United Nations.

1965: The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopts a decree proclaiming May 9 “The Day of Victory over fascist Germany” and making it a holiday.

1986: Chornobyl nuclear disaster, with Power Unit 4 exploding, contaminating 150,000 square meters of what was still Soviet territory inhabited by 6,945,000 individuals.

1996: The president of Ukraine signs an edict establishing the Chornobyl Center for Nuclear Safety and Contaminated Waste Management.