HISTORICAL KEY DATES
JANUARY
1.Jan.1967: As part of the normalization process censorship was officially applied in Czechoslovakia
1.Jan.1993: Czechoslovakia split into separate Czech and Slovak Republics
3.Jan.1993: The second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) was signed by US President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin
5.Jan.1949: An economic organization Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) connecting the Eastern bloc and socialist states was founded
5.Jan.1968: Alexander Dubček became the leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
6.Jan.1977: Document Charter 77 criticising the political and state power for violation of human and civil rights was published
8.Jan.1983: The supreme leader of the North Korea Kim Jong-un leading the country since December 2011 was born
8.Jan.1902: Georgy Malenkov leading the Soviet Union for a short period of time was born
10.Jan.1913: The last communist president of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák was born
14.Jan.1977: The main initiator of the civic initiative Charter 77 Václav Havel was arrested
14.Jan.1988: Georgy Malenkov leading the Soviet Union for a short period of time died
16.Jan.1969: Czech university student Jan Palach set himself on fire in protest against the passivity of the Czechoslovak nation. He died 3 days later.
17.Jan.1991: The operation Desert Storm began
20.Jan.1981: Ronald Reagan, who signed the INF treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) and challenged Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, became President
21.Jan.1924: The lead person of the communist revolution Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ‘Lenin’ died
25.Jan.1969: Jan Palach’s funeral became a huge manifestation against the regime.
26.Jan.1993: Václav Havel was elected the first president of the Czech Republic
28.Jan.1975: Czechoslovak president leading the country from 1957 until 1968, Antonín Novotný, died
31.Jan.1950: US President Harry S. Truman approved a construction of the hydrogen bomb, that would be 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb
FEBRUARY
1.Feb.1992: US President George W Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin proclaimed an end to the cold war
3.Feb.1994: US President Bill Clinton had placed the trade embargo on the Republic of Vietnam
5.Feb.1971: The ruler of the communist Hungary Mátyás Rákosi who lead the country from 1949 until 1956 died
7.Feb.1993: Czech Currency ‘Czech crown’ was created
9.Feb.1984: The Chairman of the KGB and a Soviet leader from 1982 until 1984, Yuri Andropov, died
12.Feb.2013: North Korea announced it had carried out an underground nuclear test
14.Feb.1974: Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, critic of the Soviet Union and its totalitarianism, was charged with treason in the Soviet Union
16.Feb.1942: The supreme leader of the North Korea leading the country from 1994 until 2011 Kim Jong-il was born
19.Feb.2008: The ill Cuban leader Fidel Castro has stepped down after forty-nine years of his rule
21.Feb.1948: Militia organization People’s Militias was set up by the Czechoslovak Communist Party
21.Feb.1981: Terrorist attack on Czechoslovak Radio Free Europe in Munich
21–25.Feb.1948: Victorious February marking the onset of 4 decades of Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia.
25.Feb.1969: Czech university student Jan Zajíc set himself on fire in protest against the passivity of the Czechoslovak nation. He died immediately.
26.Feb.1990: The agreement on withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia signed in Moscow
28.Feb.1991: The First Gulf War ended
MARCH
2.Mar.1978: Start of the Soviet rocket Soyuz 28 with the Czechoslovak astronaut Vladimir Remek aboard
2.Mar.1931: The last leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was born
5.Mar.1953: Soviet dictator who lead the Union from 1924 until 1953 Joseph Dzhugashvili ‘Stalin’ died
8.Mar.1917: The Russian Revolution, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the formation of the Soviet Union, began
9.Mar.1890: Leading figure of the Soviet government from 1921 until 1957 Vyacheslav Molotov was born
10.Mar.1948: Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk died under strange circumstances
10.Mar.1985: Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko, leading the Union from 1984 until 1985, died
13.Mar.1954: The Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union – KGB was founded
13.Mar.1977: A signatory of the Charter 77 Jan Patočka died after a long interrogation of the State Security (StB)
14.Mar.1953: Klement Gottwald, the first Czechoslovak communist president, died
14.Mar.1883: An economist and a revolutionary socialist Karl Marx died
16.Mar.1968: US army massacred between 200 and 500 unarmed South Vietnamese
19.Mar.1970: The leaders of East Germany and West Germany met for the first time since 1949
23.Mar.1983: US President Ronald Reagan proposed to establish a program to develop antimissile technology protecting the country from nuclear attacks
26.Mar.2000: Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia for the first time
27.Mar.1989: The first relatively free nationwide elections were held in the Soviet Union
30.Mar.1981: US President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. near the Washington Hilton Hotel
APRIL
2.Apr.1979: The first anthrax epidemic in the world began in Ekaterinburg, Russia
4.Apr.1949: North Atlantic Treaty Organization founded in Washington, D.C.
7.Apr.1963: Josip Broz Tito was named as the president for life period of the newly renamed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
10.Apr.1908: František Kriegl, a member of the Communist reform wing in 1968, was born
12.Apr.1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, completed an orbit of the Earth
15.Apr.1894: Leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, leading the Union from 1955 until 1964, was born
15.Apr.1998: One of the cruellest dictators of the 20th century, Saloth Sar ‘Pol Pot’, died
15.Apr.1912: The supreme leader of the North Korea leading the country from 1948 until 1994, Kim Il-sung, was born
17.Apr.1945: National Security Corps were established in Czechoslovakia
17.Apr.1969: Alexander Dubček was excluded from the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership
19.Apr.1961: The Bay of Pigs Invasion, a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by CIA, started
22.Apr.1870: The lead person of the communist revolution Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ‘Lenin’ was born
23.Apr.1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in accident when his parachute failed to deploy
26.Apr.1986: A nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Union
30.Apr.1970: Journalism and documentary office dissolved in Czechoslovak TV by the Communist party
30.Apr.1975: South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam and the war in Vietnam ended
MAY
1.May: Labour Day compulsorily celebrated by mass gatherings in Czechoslovakia
1.May.1961: Leader of Cuba Fidel Castro abolishes elections saying “The revolution has no time for elections.“
1.May.1951: First Czechoslovak broadcast of Radio Free Europe from Munich
1.May.1955: Massive Stalin’s Monument was unveiled in Prague
4.May.1980: Yugoslav revolutionary and President between the years 1953 and 1980, Josip Broz Tito, died
5.May.1818: An economist and revolutionary socialist Karl Marx was born
7.May.1892: Yugoslav revolutionary and President between the years 1953 and 1980, Josip Broz Tito, was born
9.May.1974: The metro in Prague started operating
11.May.1998: India announced that a series of underground nuclear tests was carried out
14.May.1955: The Warsaw Pact was created with Czechoslovakia as the founding member
15.May.1957: Britain announced it has exploded its first hydrogen bomb in the Pacific
16.May.1921: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was established
19.May.1925: One of the cruellest dictators of the 20th century, Saloth Sar ‘Pol Pot’, was born
19.May.1890: Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh was born
22.May.1972: US president Richard Nixon visited Soviet Union in order to negotiate about international issues. He was the first US President who visited Soviet Union.
25.May.2009: North Korea announced that it has conducted a nuclear underground explosion as a part of its nuclear weapons program
26.May.1972: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev
28.May.1884: Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, leading the country from 1935 until 1938 and from 1945 until 1948, was born
30.May.1948: First parliamentary Czechoslovak elections during communism were held
JUNE
1.Jun.1953: Drastic currency reform in Czechoslovakia causing a decline in living standards
3.Jun.1931: Cuban revolutionary and President Raúl Castro, leading the country since 2008, was born
6.Jun.2015: Author of the Two Thousand Words manifesto Ludvík Vaculík died
7.Jun.1948: Abdication of the Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš
8.-9.Jun.1990: First free elections in Czech and Slovak Federative Republic
12.Jun:1982: More than 700,000 demonstrators in New York protest against proliferation of nuclear weapons
13.Jun.1991: Boris Yeltsin wins first Russian presidential elections
14.Jun.1948: Klement Gottwald became the new president of Czechoslovakia
15.Jun.1953: The Leader of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, leading the country since 2013, was born
15.Jun.1914: The Chairman of the KGB and a Soviet leader from 1982 until 1984, Yuri Andropov, was born
16.Jun.1958: Hungarian communist politician Imre Nagy was executed for treason
18.Jun.1979: US President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Salt-II treaty dealing with limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons. The treaty never came into effect.
21.Jun.1949: General Heliodor Píka, the first victim of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia tried for political reasons, was executed in prison
23.Jun.1955: First statewide Spartakiad held at Strahov stadium in Prague
26.Jun.1968: Censorship temporarily cancelled in Czechoslovakia
27.Jun.1950: The main victim of a fabricated political show trial, Milada Horáková, was executed
27.Jun.1968: A manifesto calling for the Czechoslovaks to be more active against the Soviet leadership being against the reformist changes in Czechoslovakia, The Two Thousand Words, was published
28.Jun.1991: Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) was cancelled
30.Jun.1950: US President Harry S. Truman orders US armed forces to help South Korea with defending against North Korean military aggression
JULY
1.Jul.1991: Protocol of dissolution of the Warsaw pact was signed in Prague
1.Jul.1957: The network of shops selling luxury western goods Tuzex was founded
2.Jul.1989: Minister of the Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Andrei Gromyko, died
3.Jul.1950: Czech university student Jan Zajíc (immolated himself in 1969) was born
3.Jul.1897: General Heliodor Píka, the first victim of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia tried for political reasons, was executed in prison was born
5.Jul.1990: Václav Havel re-elected for president of Czechoslovakia
8.Jul.1994: The supreme leader of the North Korea Kim Il-sung, leading the country from 1948 until 1994, died
10.Jul.1991: The first elected president in Russia Boris Yeltsin took office
13.Jul.2012 The humanitarian aid was supplied from Miami to Cuba for the first time in 50 years (from 1962)
16.Jul.1945: The first atomic bomb in the world was detonated near Alamogordo in New Mexico, USA
19.Jul.1980: The Moscow Summer Olympic Games begun without athletes from the United States and 64 other countries that were boycotting the games due to the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan
20.Jul.1991: Václav Havel abdicated from presidency of Czechoslovakia until the end of the federation
23.Jul.1926: Author of the Two Thousand Words manifesto Ludvík Vaculík was born
27.Jul.2007: India Nuclear Pact between the United States and India was officially confirmed
31.Jul.1901: Victim of the political process in 1952, Rudolf Slánský, was born
AUGUST
2.Aug.1990: At 2:00 am, Iraq launched an invasion of Kuwait. After 2 days of intense combat was Kuwait annexed to Iraq and Saddam Hussein announced that it was the 19th province of Iraq.
5.Aug.1895: Political theorist and father of Marxist theory, Friedrich Engels, died
6.Aug.1945: Atomic bomb „Little Boy“ was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, killing more than 100,000 people
7.Aug.1990: After the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq troops ordered the US President George Herbert Walker Bush to organise the Operation Desert Shield
9.Aug.1945: The second atomic bomb „Fat Man“ was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, killing more than 70,000 people
11.Aug.1948: Czech university student Jan Palach (immolated himself in 1969) was born
12.Aug.1922: The Leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (1987-1989), Miloš Jakeš, was born
12.Aug.1957: A victim of a communist terror, Flight Lieutenant Josef Bryks, died
13.Aug.1926: Cuban President and revolutionary Fidel Castro, leading the country from 1976 until 2008, was born
13.Aug.1961: The Berlin Wall dividing West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin was constructed
19.Aug.1960: The captured American U2 pilot Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage
21.Aug.1968: Armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia
21.Aug.1940: Stalin’s agents assassinated Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky
24.Aug.1954: The Communist Control Act was signed by US President Eisenhower. The Act theoretically outlawed the Communist Party in the United States.
26.Aug.1968: The Moscow Protocol ending democratisation in Czechoslovakia signed by the Czechoslovak political leaders in Moscow after the Prague Spring
29.Aug.1949: The Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb
SEPTEMBER
2.Sep.1969: Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh died
3.Sep.1948: Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, leading the country from 1935 until 1938 and from 1945 until 1948, died
6.Sep.1991: The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gained independence from Soviet Union ending 50 years of communist rule
8.Sep.1941: Germany began the 900-day Leningrad Blockade during World War II, the blockade led to the death of more than one million people from starvation
11.Sep.1960: Politicians in West Germany have asked the people and businesses to boycott all goods from communist East Germany
12.Sep.1953: Nikita Khrushchev took over in Soviet Union
13.Sep.1968: Restoration of Censorship and limitation of freedom of assembly applied in Czechoslovakia
14.Sep.1886: Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia Jan Masaryk was born
17.Sep.1939: Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland during World War II
20.Sep.1979: Czechoslovak president Ludvík Svoboda, leading the country from 1968 until 1975, died
21.Sep.1920: First edition of the communist newspapers Rudé Právo was published
24.Sep.1911: Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko, leading the Union from 1984 until 1985, was born
28.Sep.2009: Iran successfully tested long-rang missiles potentially able to reach Israel
30.Sep.1949: The Berlin Airlift officially came to the end after 250,000 flights taking food, medical supplies, clothing and fuel to West Germany Berlin
OCTOBER
1.Oct.1988: Mikhail Gorbachev named himself head of the Supreme Soviet
3.Oct.1990: Reunification of Germany after 40 years of separation
5.Oct.1936: First president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel was born
7.Oct.1949: German Democratic Republic created
9.Oct.1967: A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, ’Che’ Guevara, was executed
11.Oct.1949: Wilhelm Pieck elected the first President of East Germany
12.Oct.1991: The United Nations Security Council banned Iraq’s Atomic Program in order to prevent it from being used as a cover for secret weapons laboratories
14.Oct.1964: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deprived of all functions
16.Oct.1964: China became the fifth country in the world with atomic bomb capability
19.Oct.1994: Prime minister of Czechoslovakia (in office 1968-1970) and reformist, Oldřich Černík, died
22.Oct.1962: Kennedy claimed that US planes had discovered USSR missile bases in Cuba. Crisis officially began.
25.Oct.1948: Forced labour camps created in Czechoslovakia
26.Oct.1956: Hungarian October Revolution is at the peak. Many dead people lying on the streets.
Oct.1968: Ban imposed on political journalism in Czechoslovak television
30. Oct.1961: The Soviet Union has exploded the biggest atomic bomb in the world, that was nearly 4,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945
31.Oct.1967: Ten university students were beaten by the National Security Corps during the demonstration for heat at the student dorms.
NOVEMBER
1.Nov.1966: North Vietnam started to bomb a jungle surrounding the capital city of South Vietnam Saigon
4.Nov.1956: Soviet tanks and troops invaded Hungary in order to fight down the protests against Soviet rule
7.Nov.1992: Former Czechoslovak president Alexander Dubček died in a car accident under strange circumstances
7.Nov.1917: Great October Socialist Revolution in Petrograd, Russia
8.Nov.1986: Leading figure of the Soviet government from 1921 until 1957, Vyacheslav Molotov, died
9.Nov.1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall after 28 years of separating West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin
10.Nov.1982: Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, leading the Union from 1964 until 1982, died
10.Nov.1989: Todor Zhivkov resigned from presidency of Bulgaria after 35 years
13.Nov.1957: Czechoslovak president Antonín Zápotocký, leading the country from 1953 until 1957, died
17.Nov.1989: Beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
18.Nov.1991: Czechoslovak president Gustáv Husák, leading the country from 1975 until 1989, died
22.Nov.1963: American President J.F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas
23.Nov.1896: Czechoslovak president Klement Gottwald, leading the country from 1948 until 1953, was born
25.Nov.1895: Czechoslovak president Ludvík Svoboda, leading the country from 1968 until 1975, was born
27.Nov.1921: Alexander Dubček, leading Czechoslovakia for a short time between 1968 and 1969, was born
30.Nov.1950: US president Harry S. Truman announced that US is prepared to authorize the use of atomic weapons in Korea
Nov.1962: Demolition of the Stalin’s Monument in Prague
Nov.1971: ’68 Publishers publishing house formed in Toronto by Josef Škvorecký and his wife
DECEMBER
2.Dec.1989: The border with Austria opened. Visa requirement called off.
3.Dec.1979: František Kriegl, a member of the Communist reform wing during 1968, died
3.Dec.1952: Rudolf Slánský executed together with other 10 politicians
7.Dec.1987: Soviet leader Gorbachev arrived in the US for an arms control summit with US president Reagan. They signed off on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, which was one of the most important arms control agreements during the Cold War.
10.Dec.1989: Abdication of the last communist Czechoslovak president Gustáv Husák
10.Dec.1904: Czechoslovak president leading the country from 1957 until 1968, Antonín Novotný, was born
15.Dec.1961: China under Chiang Kai-shek applied to become a member of the United Nations
17.Dec.2011: The supreme leader of the North Korea leading the country from 1994 until 2011 Kim Jong-il, died
18.Dec.1878: Soviet dictator who lead the Union from 1924 until 1953, Joseph Dzhugashvili ‘Stalin’, was born
18.Dec.2011: First president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, died
19.Dec.1884: Czechoslovak president Antonín Zápotocký, leading the country from 1953 until 1957, was born
19.Dec.1906: Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, leading the Union from 1964 until 1982, was born
21.Dec.1989: People’s Militia dissolved in Czechoslovakia
25.Dec.1901: Victim of the judicial murder in 1950 Milada Horáková was born
26.Dec.1991: Dissolution of the Soviet Union
26.Dec.1893: Chinese Communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, leading the country from 1945 until 1976, was born
29.Dec.1989: Václav Havel became the president of Czechoslovakia
30.Dec.1922: The origin of the Soviet Union