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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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