1.
John F. Kennedy
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Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party, and his New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy also established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, Kennedys time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Cuba, a failed attempt was made at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in April 1961. He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain approval for a war against Cuba. After military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II and he was elected subsequently to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican presidential candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U. S, at age 43, he became the youngest elected president and the second-youngest president. Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president, to date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22,1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired the shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald two days later in a jail corridor, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded Kennedy after he died in the hospital. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination, and continuing through 2013, believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter. Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedys private life has come to light, including his health problems, Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians polls of U. S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallups history of systematically measuring job approval and his grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants, Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Ted. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx and he attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years later, the moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury, in September 1931, Kennedy attended Choate, a boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for 9th through 12th grade
2.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Andrei Gromyko
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Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet communist politician during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1988. In the 1940s Western pundits called him Mr. Nyet or Grim Grom, Gromykos political career started in 1939 with his employment at the Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In 1943 Gromyko became the Soviet ambassador to the United States, upon his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952, Gromyko played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role as the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko helped negotiate arms limitations treaties such as the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, under Leonid Brezhnevs leadership Gromyko helped build the policy of détente between the US and the USSR. He supported Mikhail Gorbachevs candidacy for General Secretary in 1985, Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister when Gorbachev became General Secretary, and was instead appointed to the largely ceremonial office of head of state. Gromyko retired from life in 1988 and died the following year in Moscow. Gromyko was born to a poor semi-peasant, semi-worker family in the Belarusian village of Staryya Gramyki, Gromykos father, Andrei Matveyevich, worked as a seasonal worker in a local factory. Andrei Matveyevich was not an educated man, having only attended four years of school. He had fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Gromykos mother, Olga Yevgenyevna, came from a poor peasant family in the neighbouring city of Zhelezniki. She attended school only for a period of time as. Gromyko grew up near the town of Vetka where most of the inhabitants were devoted Old Believers in the Russian Orthodox Church. Gromykos own village was also religious, but Gromyko started doubting the supernatural at a very early age. His first dialog on the subject was with his grandmother Marfa, then you will understand all this much better. According to Gromyko, Other adults said basically the same thing when talking about religion, Gromykos neighbour at the time, Mikhail Sjeljutov, was a freethinker and introduced Gromyko to new non-religious ideas and told Gromyko that scientists were beginning to doubt the existence of God. From the age of nine, after the Bolshevik revolution, Gromyko started reading atheist propaganda in flyers, at the age of thirteen Gromyko became a member of the Komsomol and held anti-religious speeches in the village with his friends as well as promoting Communist values. The news that Germany had attacked the Russian Empire in August 1914 came without warning to the local population and this was the first time, as Gromyko notes, that he felt love for his country
5.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American politician, diplomat, and activist. President Harry S. Truman later called her the First Lady of the World in tribute to her human rights achievements, Roosevelt was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. She had a childhood, having suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenwood Academy in London and was influenced by its feminist headmistress Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U. S. she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady at the time for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. On a few occasions, she disagreed with her husbands policies. She launched a community at Arthurdale, West Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the rights of African Americans and Asian Americans. Following her husbands death in 1945, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the remaining 17 years of her life and she pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, later she chaired the John F. Kennedy administrations Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as one of the most esteemed women in the world, in 1999, she was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallups List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in 1884 at 56 West 37th Street in Manhattan, New York City, to socialites Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt, from an early age, she preferred to be called by her middle name, Eleanor. Through her father, she was a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, through her mother, she was a niece of tennis champions Valentine Gill Vallie Hall III and Edward Ludlow Hall. Her mother nicknamed her Granny because she acted in such a manner as a child. Her mother was somewhat ashamed of Eleanors plainness. Eleanor had two brothers, Elliott Jr. and Gracie Hall Roosevelt, usually called Hall. She also had a brother, Elliott Roosevelt Mann, through her fathers affair with Katy Mann. Roosevelt was born into a world of wealth and privilege
6.
Nikita Khrushchev
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Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, Khrushchevs party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar, with the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalins purges, and approved thousands of arrests, in 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalins close advisers, in the power struggle triggered by Stalins death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the Secret Speech, denouncing Stalins purges and his domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchevs rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, flaws in Khrushchevs policies eroded his popularity and emboldened potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the fate of previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970, Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease. Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russias Kursk Oblast and his parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikitas junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, Kalinovka was a peasant village, Khrushchevs teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age and he was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenkos tutelage in Kalinovkas state school. She urged Nikita to seek education, but family finances did not permit this. In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka, fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after
7.
Hyde Park, New York
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Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, Staatsburg, Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. Hyde Parks population was 21,571 at the 2010 census, US Route 9 passes through the town near the Hudson River. Settlement of the region began around 1742, but may have begun as early as 1710. The name of the area was changed to Hyde Park around 1810, previously, it was part of the Fauconnier Patent and was named Stoutenburgh, after the towns first settler, Jacobus Stoughtenburg. Part of the town was from the Great Nine Partners Patent of 1697, Dr. John Bard had called his estate Hyde Park in honor of Edward Hyde, who was Lord Cornbury and governor of New York. In 1804 a tavern keeper named Miller, seeking new guests, renamed the tavern the Hyde Park Inn and he then applied for a post office to be located at his inn, common among tavern keepers. The request was granted as the Hyde Park post office, the settlement gradually came to be known not as Stoutenburgh but as Hyde Park, which it officially became in 1812. Hyde Park was a part of Clinton, New York until 1821, the Hyde Park Railroad Station, located at the mouth of Crum Elbow Creek along the Hudson River, was used by the towns residents, including the Roosevelts. In 1900, the population was 2,806. The town includes one of Frederick William Vanderbilts many mansions, now maintained as the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, Hyde Park is the hometown of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States. His estate, Springwood, is the site of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site maintained by the National Park Service, also on the site are his presidential library and museum. Roosevelt used this residence throughout his life, fDRs historical house is now a museum that can be visited. Val-Kill was the home of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt and it is located about 2 miles east of the home of FDR. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt are both buried in the garden at Springwood. President Roosevelts father, James Roosevelt, Sr. served a term as supervisor of the town of Hyde Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town of Hyde Park has an area of 39.8 square miles, of which 36.7 square miles is land and 3.2 square miles. The Hudson River defines the west town line, which is the border of Ulster County, Hyde Park is bordered by the town of Poughkeepsie to the south, Rhinebeck to the north, and Clinton and Pleasant Valley to the east
8.
Lublin
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Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland and the second largest city of Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 349,103, Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River, and is located approximately 170 kilometres to the southeast of Warsaw by road. One of the events that contributed to the citys development was the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. In 1474, Lublin, which was part of the Sandomierz region. Lublin also witnessed the early stages of Reformation in the 16th century, a Calvinist congregation was founded and certain groups of radical Arians also appeared in the city, making it an important national centre of Arianism. Until the partitions at the end of the 18th century, Lublin was a city of the Crown Kingdom of Poland. Its delegates and nobles had the right to participate in the Royal Election, although Lublin was not spared from severe destruction during World War II, its picturesque and historical Old Town has been preserved. The district is one of Polands official national Historic Monuments, as designated May 16,2007, the city is viewed as an attractive location for foreign investment and the analytical Financial Times Group has found Lublin to be one of the best cities for business in Poland. The Foreign direct investment ranking placed Lublin second among larger Polish cities in the Cost-effectiveness category, Lublin is also noted for its green spaces and a high standard of living. Archaeological finds indicate a presence of cultures in the area. A complex of settlements started to develop on the site of Lublin and in its environs in the 6th-7th centuries. Remains of settlements dating back to the 6th century were discovered in the center of todays Lublin on Czwartek Hill, the next period of the early Middle Ages was marked by intensification of habitation, particularly in the areas along river valleys. The settlements at the time were centered around the stronghold on Old Town Hill, when the tribal stronghold was destroyed in the 10th century, the center shifted to the north-east, to a new stronghold above Czechówka valley, and after the mid-12th century to Castle Hill. At least two churches are presumed to have existed in Lublin in the medieval period. One of them was most probably erected on Czwartek Hill during the rule of Casimir the Restorer in the 11th century. The castle became the seat of a Castellan, first mentioned in sources from 1224. The oldest historical document mentioning Lublin dates from 1198, so the name must have come into use some time earlier. The location of Lublin at the borders of the Polish lands gave it military significance
9.
Bakhmut
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Bakhmut formerly Artemivsk/Artyomovsk, is a city of regional significance in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. On 4 February 2016 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine confirmed the change of the city by returning to the original one. The city serves as a center of Bakhmut Raion although it does not belong to the raion. It is located on the Bakhmutka River about 89 km away from the center of the Donetsk Oblast. Population,77, 177 There is evidence of settlement in 1556. However, officially it was founded in 1571 and named as Bakhmut fort after the river Bakhmutka on which it is situated, the settlement initially began as a border point and was later turned into a fortification. The name derived from Tatar name Mahmud or Mahmet, in 1701, Peter I ordered to build a fort and rename the town from Bahmut to Bakhmut. The fort was completed in 1703, in 1704 Peter the Great issued a ukase permitting Cossacks to settle in Bakhmut. From 1708 to April 22,1725, Bakhmut is situated in the Azov Governorate, from 1753 to 1764, it was a main city of the Slavo-Serbia territory inhabited by colonists from Serbia and elsewhere. In 1783, Bakhmut received city status within the Yekaterinoslav province, during this time, in the city, there were 49 houses, five brick, candle, and soap factories. The city had about 150 shops, a hospital, and three schools, two boarding schools for children of wealthy parents, and a Sunday school for children of workers. Bakhmut had a shopping center. There twice a year, on July 12 and September 21, the citys annual turnover was about 1 million rubles. On August 2,1811, the city emblem was approved, in 1875, a water-system was installed. On January 25,1851, the city became a municipality, in 1876, within the Bakhmut Basin were discovered large deposits of rock salt, which was followed by a rapid increase in the numbers of mines, with salt productions reaching 12% nationwide. After the construction of a rail route Kharkov-Bakhmut-Popasnaya, there was enterprise for the production of alabaster, plaster, brick, tile, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the city developed metal-working. By 1900, the city had 76 small industrial enterprises, which employed 1,078 workers, as well as four salt mines, in 1900, the streets became paved. By 1913, the population consisted of 28,000 people, There were two hospitals with 210 beds, four secondary and two vocational schools, six single-class schools, four parish schools, and a private library
10.
Samara
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Samara, known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev, is the sixth largest city in Russia and the administrative center of Samara Oblast. It is situated in the part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga. The Volga acts as the western boundary, across the river are the Zhiguli Mountains. The northern boundary is formed by the Sokolyi Hills and by the steppes in the south, the land within the city boundaries covers 46,597 hectares. The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast contains a population of three million. Formerly a closed city, Samara is now a large and important social, political, economic, industrial and it has a continental climate characterised by hot summers and cold winters. Samaras riverfront is considered one of the recreation places both for local citizens and tourists. After the Soviet novelist Vasily Aksyonov visited Samara, he remarked, I am not sure where in the West one can find such a long, ahmad ibn Fadlan visited the area that is now Samara around the year 921 AD while on his journey up the Volga. The Volga port of Samara appears on Italian maps of the 14th century, before 1586, the Samara Bend was a pirate nest. Lookouts would spot a boat and quickly cross to the other side of the peninsula where the pirates would organize an attack. Officially, Samara started with a built in 1586 at the confluence of the Volga. This fortress was a frontier post protecting the then easternmost boundaries of Russia from forays of nomads, a local customs office was established in 1600. As more and more pulled into Samaras port, the town turned into a center for diplomatic and economic links between Russia and the East. Samara also opened its gates to peasant war rebels headed by Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachyov, welcoming them with traditional bread, the town was visited by Peter the Great and later Tsars. In 1780, Samara was turned into a town of Simbirsk Governorate overseen by the local Governor-General, and Uyezd and Zemstvo Courts of Justice. On January 1,1851, Samara became the center of Samara Governorate with a population of 20,000. This gave a stimulus to the development of the economic, political and cultural life of the community, in 1877, during the Russian-Turkish War, a mission from the Samara city government Duma led by Pyotr V. The quick growth of Samaras economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was determined by the scope of the bread trade and flour milling business
