Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) led the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers,
or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the
partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress
of the world's early space program, and for several relatively liberal
reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev was born in the Russian
village of Kalinovka in 1894. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he
worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Stalin's purges,
and approved thousands of arrests. Stalin's political heirs fought for
power after his death in 1953, a struggle in which Khrushchev, after
several years, emerged triumphant. On February 25, 1956, at the
Twentieth Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", vilifying
Stalin and ushering in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union.
Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev
ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts,
Khrushchev's rule saw the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in
the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
138:
Roman Emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius as his son and successor,
after the death of his first adopted son Lucius Aelius.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoninus_Pius>
1570:
Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis to excommunicate
Queen Elizabeth I and her followers in the Church of England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnans_in_Excelsis>
1836:
American inventor and industrialist Samuel Colt received a patent for a
"revolving gun", later known as a revolver.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/revolver>
1921:
The Soviet Red Army took over the Georgian capital Tbilisi after heavy
fighting and declared the new Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_invasion_of_Georgia>
1986:
Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as the first female President of the
Philippines after Ferdinand Marcos fled the nation after twenty years
of rule because of the People Power Revolution.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corazon_Aquino>
1994:
Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim Arabs praying
at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and
wounding 125 others.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
plenary (adj):
1. Fully attended; for everyone's attendance.
2. (theology or law) Complete, entire
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plenary>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be
there with you.
--George Harrison
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Harrison>