On October 25, 1924, just four days before Britain’s general election, The Daily Mail published a sensational document that would become one of the most infamous political forgeries in modern history—the so-called Zinoviev Letter. Purporting to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, head of…
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The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 served as one of the most dangerous episodes in the history of the Cold War. It was a critical moment in which the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war. The crisis…
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On October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy received the news that would bring the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. Two days earlier, on October 14, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane flying over western Cuba had captured a series of high-resolution…
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On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during one of the holiest days of the Jewish people. The Yom Kippur War marked a significant turn in the history of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their goal…
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It was a joke that put everyone on edge. On August 11, 1984, during a routine sound check before his weekly Saturday radio address, President Ronald Reagan made a remark that would become one of the most infamous gaffes of his presidency. Testing the…
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On August 8, 1945 the United States, England, France and the Soviet Union joined together and signed the London Agreement, a new treaty to impose justice against the Nazis for their crimes. For two months during the summer of 1945, Robert H. Jackson and…
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The execution of Tsar Nicholas II on July 17, 1918, changed the course of history, symbolizing the definitive end of the Romanov dynasty and the old imperial order in Russia and ushering in the Soviet Union. The event, shrouded in mystery and controversy, occurred…
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On July 10, 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation, a historic moment marking a significant shift in Russian politics. This event came at a time of profound transformation for Russia, as it transitioned from a Soviet republic to a…
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On June 27, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon arrived in Moscow for what would be his final summit with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev—a visit overshadowed by scandal at home and a shifting geopolitical order abroad. Though the meeting marked a continuation of the historic…
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Hungry sailors are not to be trifled with. That’s what happened aboard the Russian battleship the Potemkin on June 27, 1905. Spoiled meat sparked a storm of rebellion that echoed across revolutionary-minded Russia. The US Naval Institute helps contextualize things: “For a century before 1905, Imperial Russia was…
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