Soviet Top Secret Weapons

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Cities of the Underworld 2: Secret Soviet Bases

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THE LAST DAYS OF WWII: Episode 10  >>>

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soviet

Originally a strike committee elected by Russian workers in the 1905 revolution; in 1917 these were set up by peasants, soldiers, and factory workers. The soviets sent delegates to the All‐Russian Congress of Soviets to represent their opinions to a future government. They were later taken over by the Bolsheviks.


From the Hutchinson Encyclopedia of World History. © Research Machines plc [2006] All Rights Reserved, Helicon Publishing is a division of Research Machines.
175 listings
 
Chechnya in Focus
Sea Spies
Soviet UFO Secrets Revealed
The Olympics
D-Day
The Olympic 28
Charlie Wilson's War
Chechnya in Focus
2 January 1979

In response to Soviet military intervention into Afghanistan in December 1979, US President Jimmy Carter requests that the Senate postpone action on the SALT-II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls the US ambassador to the Soviet Union.

5 January 1968

Alexander Dubcek becomes the new leader of Czechoslovakia. In what came to be known as the 'Prague Spring', Dubeck introduced liberal reforms to the Communist regime. However, in August, the Soviet Union put an end to this reform process with the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

13 January 1991

As protesters continue to fight for Lithuanian independence, 13 people are killed and more than 140 injured by the Soviet military.

14 January 1980

In a diplomatic rebuke to the Soviet Union, the UN General Assembly votes 104 to 18 to 'deplore' the Russian intervention in Afghanistan.

16 January 1969
In Prague, Czechoslovakia, student Jan Palach sets himself on fire to protest against the Soviet invasion that ended the 'Prague Spring'. Palach died from his burns.
17 January 1945
World War II: Soviet troops capture the Polish capital Warsaw.
18 January 1944
World War II: Soviet forces manage to break the siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg).
21 January 1924

In the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin dies from a cerebral haemorrhage.

22 January 1990

Soviet troops are sent into Azerbaijan to quell civil unrest.

23 January 1989

A powerful earthquake hits the Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan. Hundreds of people are feared dead.

26 January 1980

In response to the Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan and at the request of President Carter, the US Olympic Committee votes to ask the International Olympic Committee to cancel or move the Moscow Olympics.

27 January 1985

Coca Cola announces that it will sell its produce in the Soviet Union.

29 January 1942

World War II: Iran signs an alliance with Britain and the Soviet Union.

30 January 1945

World War II: The German ship Wilhelm Gustloff sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. The ship was overfilled with refugees; approximately 9,000 people died.

3 February 1966
The Soviet Union makes the first controlled landing of a spacecraft, Luna 9, on the Moon.
7 February 1990
The Central Committee of the Soviet Union's Communist Party agrees to endorse President Mikhail Gorbachev's recommendation that the party give up its 70-year long monopoly of political power.
9 February 1991
Lithuania votes for independence from the Soviet Union.
10 February 1962
US spy plane pilot Gary Powers, shot down by the Soviet Union, is exchanged in Berlin for KGB agent Rudolf Abel, arrested in New York in 1957.
11 February 1971
Britain, the US and the Soviet Union are among the countries which sign The Seabed Arms Control Treaty.
13 February 1984

Konstantin Chernenko becomes general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

14 February 1974

Soviet authorities charge Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn with treason one day after expelling him from the country.

15 February 1989

The last sets of Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

17 February 1957

Andre Gromyko is appointed Soviet Foreign Minister.

20 February 1986

The Soviet space station, Mir is launched.

21 February 1972

Luna 20, the unmanned Soviet Spaceship lands on the Moon.

22 February 1994

In America, CIA agent Aldrich Ames is arrested for selling secrets to the Soviet Union

25 February 1956

Soviet premiere Nikita Khrushchev goes before Communist Party Congress in Moscow and denounces late dictator Joseph Stalin.

1 March 1966
Venera 3, a Soviet probe collides with Venus. It is the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
2 March 1919
In the Soviet Union, the first Communist International (Comintern) meets in Moscow.
5 March 1940
The Second World War: The Soviet politburo signs an order for the execution of thousands of Polish citizens, known as the Katyn massacre.
6 March 1953
Georgi Malenkov succeeds Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union.
7 March 1950
The Soviet Union issues a statement denying that Klaus Fuchs is a Russian spy.
8 March 1983
American President Ronald Reagan again refers to the Soviet Union in a speech as the “evil empire.”
11 March 1985
Mikhail Gorbachov becomes the leader of the Soviet Union.
13 March 1961
The trial of five people known as Portland Spy for plotting to pass official secrets to the Soviet Union Ring begins at the Old Bailey in England.
18 March 1965
Soviet cosmonaut, Aleksei Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space.
19 March 1949
In a precursor to the establishment of a separate Soviet-dominated East Germany, The People's Council of the Soviet Zone of Occupation approve a new constitution.
25 March 1946
The Soviet Union announces that it will withdraw all its troops from Iran.
27 March 1989
In the Soviet Union, the first general election is held where people can vote for candidates from parties other than the Communist Party.
31 March 1966
The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, an unmanned probe which becomes the first to reach the orbit of the Moon.
2 April 1989
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Havana to meet with Fidel Castro.
3 April 1922
Joseph Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
5 April 1951
A court in America sentences Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for spying for the Soviet Union.
13 April 1990

The Soviet government officially accepts blame for the Katyn Massacre, an incident that occurred during the Second World War, when nearly 5,000 Polish military officers were murdered and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest.

14 April 1988
The Soviet Union signs an agreement committing it to leave Afghanistan.
16 April 1947
The term “Cold War”, to describe relations between the West and the Soviet Union, is first used in a speech by financier Bernard Baruch in America.
17 April 1969
Czechoslovakian Communist Party leader, Alexander Dubcek, is forced to resign by the Soviet Union.
20 April 1978
Soviet aircraft force a Korean Air Lines passenger jet to land in the Soviet Union after the jet veers into Russian airspace. Two people are killed and several others injured after the jet was forced to make an emergency landing. .
23 April 1945
President Truman meets Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov in America, lambasting the Soviet’s for breaking agreements with the U.S. 
24 April 1967
The Soviet spaceship, Soyuz 1, crashes on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. 
27 April 1945
The Second World War: Soviet and American troops join up with one another at the River Elbe in Germany
28 April 1994
Former CIA agent Aldrich Ames is sentenced to life in prison by a court in Arlington, Virginia for spying for the Soviet Union.
1 May 1960
An American U-2 spy plane is shot whilst flying over the Soviet Union, causing a major diplomatic incident.
4 May 1990
Latvia proclaims independence from the Soviet Union.
7 May 1960
Leonid Brezhnev is selected as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet equivalent to the presidency.
8 May 1984
The Soviet Union withdraws from the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
9 May 1956
British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden refuses to divulge information about a naval diver who disappeared during a visit by the Soviet leadership. It later transpires that the diver was an M16 agent.
14 May 1964
President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev celebrate the beginning of the first stage in the building of the Aswan High Dam.
15 May 1988
The first of an estimated 120,000 Soviet troops begin leaving Afghanistan after eight years of occupation.
17 May 1960
The East-West summit in Paris between the Soviet Union, America, Britain and France fails to get past procedural matters due to a row erupting about the American U2 spy plane that was shot down over Russia on 1 May. 
19 May 1967
The Soviet Union ratifies an agreement banning nuclear weapons from outer space.
21 May 1988
Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev dismisses the leaders of the Communist Parties of the two Soviet Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively.
27 May 1972
Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon, meeting in Moscow, sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements.
28 May 1987
A 19 year old West German, Mathias Rust, surprises the Soviet authorities by flying a light plane from Helsinki to Moscow and landing safely in Red Square.
1 June 1990
America and the Soviet Union sign an agreement to end production of chemical weapons and begin the destruction of their reserves of them.
3 June 1973
A Soviet supersonic airliner, a Tupolev 144, crashes while flying at the Paris Air Show, killing 14 people.
4 June 1961
American President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agree to support a neutral and independent Laos.
6 June 1971
The Soviet Union launch Soyuz 11, the first successful spaceflight to the world's first space station. Salyut 1.
9 June 1944
The Second World War: The Red Army push into East Karelia, in Finland, fighting to gain back control of territory that had already been ceded to the Soviet Union.
12 June 1987
American President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
17 June 1953
The Soviet Union orders an entire armoured division of its troops into East Berlin to crush a rebellion by workers and anti-government protesters.
18 June 1979
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev sign a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 2) in Vienna.
20 June 1963
The Soviet Union and America agree to install a telephone hotline between Moscow and Washington.
23 June 196
The first day of the Glassboro Summit Conference between United States President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Union Premier Aleksei Kosygin in America.
24 June 1945
The Second World War: Soviet troops parade past Red Square in celebration of their victory over Germany.
26 June 1948
In response to the Soviet blockade of West Berlin the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city.
28 June 1948
The Soviet Union expels Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (COMINFORM) for the latter’s position on the Greek civil war.
1 July 1991
In Prague, the formal ending of the Warsaw Pact, the defence agreement between countries under Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.
2 July 1985
In the Soviet Union, Andrei Gromyko becomes chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
3 July 1957
Nikita Khrushchev secures his leadership in the Soviet Union by removing most of his serious opponents from positions of authority in the government.
10 July 1990
Mikhail Gorbachev is is re-elected head of the Soviet Communist Party.
11 July 1945
The Second World War: The Soviet Union promises to hand power over to British and U.S. forces in West Berlin.
12 July 1943
The Second World War: German and Russian tanks clash at the Battle of Prokhorovka as the Soviets stop the German offensive at Kursk, Russia.
19 July 1980
Opening of the 22nd Olympic Games in Moscow - boycotted by more than 40 nations in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
23 July 1962
The United States and the Soviet Union sign an agreement guaranteeing a free and neutral Laos.
24 July 1969
The British Government exchanges two Soviet spies for British lecturer Gerald Brooke, who had already served four years in a Soviet jail for smuggling anti-Soviet leaflets.
31 July 1991
U.S. President George Bush and Soviet President Mikail Gorbachev sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Moscow.
1 August 1975
The United States, the Soviet Union, Canada and every European nation (except Albania) sign the Helsinki Final Act at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
3 August 1948
In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Whittaker Chambers accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.
6 August 1961
Major Gherman Titov becomes the second Soviet cosmonaut to be launched into space.
7 August 1987
Lynne Cox becomes the first woman to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union.
8 August 1945
The Second World War: The Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, invading Japanese-occupied Manchuria in north eastern China.
9 August 1985
Arthur Walker, a retired U.S. Navy officer, is found guilty of espionage for passing top-secret documents to his brother, who passed them on to Soviet agents.
13 August 1920
Polish – Soviet War: Start of the Battle of Warsaw, which the Polish eventually win.
15 August 1964
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev declares that he is ready to begin disarmament talks with the West.
17 August 1970
The Soviet Union launches Venera 7, the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from Venus.
19 August 1991
Soviet hardliners attempt to topple President Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup, putting tanks on the streets of Moscow, banning demonstrations and imposing a state of emergency. The coup is declared a failure less than 48 hours later.
20 August 1991
Estonia regains independence from the Soviet Union.
21 August 1968
Soviet troops enter Czechoslovakia bringing an end to the “Prague Spring.”
22 August 1944
The Second World War: Romania is conquered by the Soviet Union.
23 August 1991
Following the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader starts to purge those senior communist officials that supported the coup.
24 August 1991
The Parliament of Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union.
25 August 1991
Belarus declares independence from the Soviet Union.
26 August 1978
Sigmund Jahn becomes the first German in space on board the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 31.
27 August 1991
Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union.
28 August 1924
The August Uprising against Soviet rule begins in Georgia.
29 August 1949
The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb in Kazakhstan.
30 August 1963
A telephone hotline is established between the U.S. President in the White House, Washington DC and the Soviet Premier in the Kremlin in Moscow.
31 August 1991
Kyrgyzstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1 September 1983
The Soviet Union shoots down a Korean Airlines passenger plane after it accidentally strayed into Russian airspace. All 269 people onboard are killed.
6 September 1991
The Soviet Union recognises the independent Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
9 September 1991
The Republic of Tajikistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
11 September 1971
Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev dies aged 77.
12 September 1990
Representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union sign an agreement giving up all occupation rights in Germany.
13 September 1990
Andrei Chikatilo, the Soviet Union’s most prolific serial killer, is charged with the murder of 53 people.
14 September 1985
The Soviet Union expels 25 British nationals from the country in retaliation for Britain expelling 25 alleged Soviet Spies two days previously.
15 September 1959
Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet head of state to visit the United States.
17 September 1939
The Second World War: the Soviet Union takes advantage of its non-aggression treaty with Germany to invade Poland from the East.
19 September 1959
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, on his first visit to the United States, is informed by his American hosts that he won’t be able to visit Disneyland due to concerns with regard to crowd control!
20 September 1970
The Soviet space probe, Lunar 16, successfully lands on the Moon.
21 September 1991
Armenia’s independence is recognised by the Soviet Union.
28 September 1939
The Second World War: Germany and the Soviet Union agree on the partition of Poland.
29 September 1960
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev voices his disapproval of the UN handling of the troubles in the Congo making several interruptions during the course of a UN debate on the issue in New York.
30 September 1971
The British Foreign Office names Oleg Lyalin as the Russian defector who helped to provide the intelligence which lead to the expulsion of 105 Soviet officials from Britain on 25th September.
7 October 1959
The Soviet spacecraft Lunik III takes the first pictures of the far side of the moon.
9 October 1988
Thousands of Latvians march through the streets of Riga demanding greater autonomy for the country from the Soviet Union. 
12 October 1986
U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev fail to reach an agreement in Reykjavik about nuclear weapons disarmament.
14 October 1964
Whilst on holiday Nikita Khrushchev is ousted from power in the Soviet Union as Leonid Brezhnev assumes control.
15 October 1990
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
18 October 1967
The Soviet space probe Venera 4 enters the atmosphere of the planet Venus, the first such probe to achieve this.
22 October 1966
In England, Soviet double agent George Blake escapes from Wormwood Scrubs in London where he was serving a 44 year sentence for spying against the British Government.
23 October 1989
President Mátyás Szűrös proclaims the Hungarian Republic, ending Soviet domination of the country. 
26 October 1959
The Soviet Union releases pictures of the far side of the Moon taken by the satellite Lunik 3.
28 October 1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to an end when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev orders the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
30 October 1961
The Soviet Union conducts the world’s largest ever nuclear test over the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya.
31 October 1961
The embalmed body of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is removed from public display in Moscow and placed in a concealed tomb.
2 November 1982
A truck explodes in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing an estimated 3,000 people, mostly Soviet soldiers travelling to the capital, Kabul.
4 November 1956
Soviet troops enter Budapest as Soviet planes bomb part of the city putting an end to Hungary’s move towards independence from the Soviet Union.
7 November 1944
The Second World War: Soviet spy Richard Sorge, who had used the cover of a German journalist to report on Germany and Japan for the Soviet Union, is hanged by his Japanese captors.
9 November 1956
Following the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary, French philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre denounces both the USSR and its communist system.
10 November 1982
The leader of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev dies aged 75.
12 November 1982
Yuri Andropov becomes the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
14 November 1951
In an attempt to widen the split between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, President Harry Truman asks Congress for U.S. military and economic aid for the communist Yugoslavia.
16 November 1965
The Soviet Union launches the unmanned spacecraft Venera 3, which eventually lands on the surface of the planet Venus, becoming the first space probe to successfully land on another planet.
17 November 1970
Soviet spacecraft Lunokhod 1 lands on the Moon and releases the first moonwalker vehicle to travel across the planet’s surface.
19 November 1985
President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Geneva, Switzerland, for the first meeting between American and the Soviet Union for six years.
21 November 1985
The Geneva summit between American and the Soviet Union ends amicably but without a formal agreement on weapons reduction. 
25 November 1937
Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern pact in Berlin, providing for consultation should either country be attacked by the Soviet Union.
28 November 1943
The Second World War: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran to discuss the Allied war strategy.
30 November 1981
Representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union open talks to reduce their intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe. However, they fail to reach an agreement.
1 December 1934
A leading member of the Russian Revolution, Sergey Kirov, who was also a high-ranking member of the Soviet Politburo, is shot to dead probably on the orders of Stalin.
5 December 1978
An unpopular pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan signs a “friendship treaty” with the Soviet Union. The Soviet’s agree to provide economic and military assistance to the Afghan government.
7 December 1988
In the Soviet Union, an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits north western Armenia killing approximately 25,000 people.
8 December 1991
The beginning of the end of the Soviet Union; three of the major republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus unite to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
9 December 1950
Harry Gold, who confessed to serving as a courier between Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist who stole top secret information on the atomic bomb, and Soviet agents, is sentenced to 30 years in jail in America.
14 December 1939
The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations.
16 December 1984
Prior to his appointment as leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev meets British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in England.
18 December 1973
A second test flight of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 13 takes off.
19 December 1986
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev releases dissident Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Elena Bonner, from their internal exile in the Soviet city of Gorky.
20 December 1917
The Soviet secret police the Cheka is established.  
21 December 1991
11 of the 12 Soviet republics declare that they are forming the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
23 December 1986
The Soviet Union’s most prominent dissident Andrei Sakharov returns to Moscow and vows to continue the struggle for human rights in the country following the end of his internal exile in the city of Gorky.
24 December 1979
Soviet troops begin their invasion of Afghanistan.
25 December 1991
Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigns as President of the Soviet Union.
26 December 1974

The Soviet space station Salyut 4 is launched into orbit.

30 December 1922
Russia officially becomes the USSR - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
3 December 1989
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George Bush effectively call an end to the Cold War at the Malta summit.
 

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