Brezhnev Assassination Attempt
An assassination attempt was made upon Leonid Brezhnev on 22 January 1969, when a deserter from the Soviet Army, Viktor Ilyin, fired shots at a motorcade carrying the Soviet leader through Moscow. Though Brezhnev was unhurt, the shots killed a driver and lightly injured several celebrated cosmonauts of the Soviet space program who were present in the motorcade. Brezhnev's attacker was captured and a news blackout on the event was maintained by the Soviet government for years thereafter. Would-be assassin Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin (russian: Виктор Иванович Ильин) was born in Leningrad in 1947. After his graduation from a technical college, he was inducted into the Soviet Army in 1968 at the rank of lieutenant. Ilyin was said to have been resentful of his forced conscription and distressed by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. On 21 January 1969, Ilyin stole two standard-issue Makarov handguns and deserted his army unit. He went back to his family in Leningra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a direct role in matters of the state, may also sometimes be considered an assassination. An assassination may be prompted by political and military motives, or done for financial gain, to avenge a grievance, from a desire to acquire fame or notoriety, or because of a military, security, insurgent or secret police group's command to carry out the assassination. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin or hitman. Etymology The word ''assassin'' may be derived from '' asasiyyin'' (Arabic: أَسَاسِيِّين, ʾasāsiyyīn) from أَسَاس (ʾasās, "foundation, basis") + ـِيّ (-iyy), meaning "people who are faithful to the founda ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Makarov Pistol
The Makarov pistol or PM ( rus, Пистоле́т Мака́рова, r=Pistolét Makárova, p=pʲɪstɐˈlʲet mɐˈkarəvə, t=Makarov's Pistol) is a Soviet semi-automatic pistol. Under the project leadership of Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov, it became the Soviet Union's standard military and Militsiya side arm in 1951. Development Shortly after the Second World War, the Soviet Union reactivated its plans to replace the TT pistols and Nagant M1895 revolvers. The adoption of the future AK assault rifle relegated the pistol to a light, handy self-defense weapon. The TT was unsuited for such a role, as it was heavy and bulky. Also, the Tokarev pistols omitted a safety and magazines were deemed too easy to lose. As a result, in December 1945, two separate contests for a new service pistol were created, respectively for a 7.62mm and 9mm pistol. It was later judged that the new 9.2×18mm cartridge, designed by B. V. Semin, was the best round suited for the intended role. The lower p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexei Leonov
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon although the project was cancelled. In July 1975, Leonov commanded the Soyuz capsule in the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which docked in space for two days with an American Apollo capsule. Early life and military service Leonov was born on 30 May 1934 in Listvyanka, West Siberian Krai, Russian SFSR. His grandfather had been forced to relocate to Siberia for his role in the 1905 Russian Revolution. Alexei was the eighth of nine surviving children born to Yevdokia and Arkhip. His father was an electrician and miner. In 1936, his father was arrested and declared an "enemy of the people". Leonov wrote in his autobiography ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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State Kremlin Palace
The State Kremlin Palace (russian: Государственный Кремлёвский Дворец), formerly and unofficially still better known as the Kremlin Palace of Congresses (Кремлёвский Дворец съездов), is a large modern building inside the Moscow Kremlin. History The building was built at the initiative of Nikita Khrushchev as a modern arena for Communist Party meetings. The building replaced several heritage buildings including the old neo-classical building of the State Armoury and some of the back corpuses of the Great Kremlin Palace. This, and that the architecture of the projected building contrasted with the historic milieu resulted in quite an uproar, particularly after other historic buildings of the Kremlin, such as the Chudov and Ascension cloisters, had already been replaced and laws by the mid-1950s ought to prevent demolishion of historic structures, making the construction in some ways illegal. The construction work started ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nikolai Podgorny
Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny, ''Mykola Viktorovych Pidhornyy'' rus, Никола́й Ви́кторович Подго́рный, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ pɐdˈgornɨj, links=yes ( – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977. Podgorny was born to a Ukrainian working-class family in the city of Karlovka in 18 February 1903. He later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kyiv Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931. In 1930, Podgorny became a member of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and climbed up the Soviet hierarchy after years of service to the country's centrally planned economy. By 1953, Podgorny became Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1953 before later serving as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1957 to 1963. In October ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vnukovo Airport
Vnukovo, formally Vnukovo Andrei Tupolev International Airport (named after Andrei Tupolev) ( rus, links=no, Внуково, p=ˈvnukəvə) , is a dual-runway international airport located in Vnukovo District, southwest of the centre of Moscow, Russia. It is one of the four major airports that serve Moscow, along with Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, and Zhukovsky. In 2019, the airport handled 24.01 million passengers, representing an increase of 12% compared to the previous year. It is the tenth-busiest airport in Europe. History Vnukovo is Moscow's oldest operating airport. It was opened and used for military operations during the Second World War, but became a civilian facility after the war. Its construction was approved by the Soviet government in 1937, because the older Khodynka Aerodrome (located much closer to the city centre, but closed by the 1980s) was becoming overloaded. Vnukovo was built by several thousand inmates of Likovlag, a Gulag concentration camp created s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aleksei Yeliseyev
Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev (russian: Алексей Станиславович Елисеев; born 13 July 1934) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 5 , Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10. He made the world's eighth spacewalk during Soyuz 5 in 1969. Aleksei's father was Lithuanian with the last name Kuraitis, who died in the Soviet's Gulag as an enemy of the people. Aleksei uses his mother's last name "Yeliseyev" so some regard him as also being a Lithuanian cosmonaut. A graduate of the Bauman Higher Technical School (1957) and postgraduate of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (1962). Yeliseyev worked as an engineer in Sergey Korolev's design bureau before being selected for cosmonaut training. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yevgeny Khrunov
Yevgeny Vasilyevich Khrunov (; 10 September 1933 – 20 May 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 5/Soyuz 4 mission. Early life Yevgeny Khrunov was born on 10 September 1933 to Vasily Yegorevich and Agrafena Nikolayevna. Nicknamed “Zhenya” he had five brothers and two sisters. Khrunov's family was a farming family. Khrunov married Svetlana Sokolyuk and had a son on 13 July 1959. He was born in Prudy, Tula Oblast, Russian SFSR. Education and career Khrunov began officially being schooled in 1941. Khrunov was initially interested in pursuing farming in studies. His interest in flying would soon follow after he watched the planes during wartime. Once he graduated from primary school he enrolled at Kashira Agricultural Secondary School on scholarship and would graduate from there in 1952. His teachers regularly spoke highly of him and considered him a hard working student. In 1952 Khrunov was also drafted into the Soviet Army where he would follow his interests ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boris Volynov
Boris Valentinovich Volynov (russian: Бори́с Валенти́нович Волы́нов; born 18 December 1934) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21. Following the death of Alexei Leonov in October 2019, he is the last surviving member of the original group of cosmonauts. He is also considered to be the first Jew in space. Biography Volynov was born in Irkutsk in Siberia, but then his family relocated, and he finished secondary school in Prokopyevsk, Kemerovo Oblast, in 1952. The next year he completed basic pilot training in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, and in 1955 graduated from an aviation school in Novosibirsk. From September 1961 to January 1968 he studied at the faculty of engineering of the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and graduated with a diploma of a pilot-engineer-cosmonaut. Later in 1980 he defended a PhD at the same academy. After resigning from the space program in 1982, he spent eight years as a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vladimir Shatalov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov (russian: Владимир Александрович Шаталов; December 8, 1927 – June 15, 2021) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10.Spacefacts Spacefacts.de. Retrieved on August 4, 2012. From 1987 to 1991, he headed the . Early life Vladimir Shatalov was born on December 8, 1927, in ovsk, ,[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soyuz 5
Soyuz 5 (russian: Союз 5, ''Union 5'') was a Soyuz mission using the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on 15 January 1969, which docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit. It was the first docking of two crewed spacecraft of any nation, and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another of any nation, the only time a transfer was accomplished with a space walk – two months before the United States Apollo 9 mission performed the first internal crew transfer. The mission, flown by cosmonauts Boris Volynov, Aleksei Yeliseyev, and Yevgeny Khrunov, was also memorable for its dramatic re-entry. The craft's service module did not separate, so it entered the atmosphere nose-first, leaving Volynov hanging by his restraining straps. As the craft aerobraked, the atmosphere burned through the service module, allowing the remaining descent module to right itself before the escape hatch was burned through. During the descent, the parachute lines tangled and the lan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soyuz 4
Soyuz 4 (russian: Союз 4, ''Union 4'') was launched on 14 January 1969, carrying Astronaut, cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft, and return to Earth. The previous Soyuz programme, Soyuz flight (Soyuz 3) was also a docking attempt but failed for various reasons. The radio call sign of the crew was , while Soyuz 5 was . This referred to the trans-Siberian railway project called the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which was in development at the time. Crew Backup Crew Reserve Crew Mission parameters * Mass: * Perigee: * Apogee: * Inclination: 51.73° * Period: 88.72 minutes Space walk * '' Yeliseyev and Khrunov '' – EVA 1 * EVA 1 start: 16 January 1969, 12:43:00 GMT * EVA 1 end: 16 January 1969, 13:15:00 GMT * Duration: 32 minutes Mission highlights The Soyuz 4 and 5 spacecraft docked on 16 January 1969, the first time two crewed spacecraft had docked ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |