This week in history

April 9: 1917. The First Congress of Cooperative Unions of Ukraine opened and would found the Central All-Ukrainian Cooperative Union.

1921. Nasha pravda [Our Truth] weekly, central organ of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia began publication in Vienna.

April 10: 1944. Troops of the Third Ukrainian Front took Odesa.

1996. A Ukrainian wholesale energy trade system was implemented.

April 11: 1945 . The NKVD arrested top leaders of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Lviv, including Metropolitan Yosyp Slipyj.

1995. The World Bank Board of Directors approved a $114,000,000 preferential loan for the technical reconstruction of Ukrainian energy system.

April 12: World Day of Aviation and Space Research.

1961. The Vostok spaceship piloted by Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin conducted the world’s first manned orbital space flight.

April 13: 1940. Stage two Soviet deportations from Western Ukraine began, involving 320,000 persons.

1995. The first issue of the periodical Courier of the National Bank of Ukraine was published in Kyiv.

April 14: 1768. The Koliyivshchyna, the biggest revolt of the haidamaky in Ukraine against Polish rule led by Maksym Zalizniak and Ivan Honta began.

1940. The Presidium of the Supreme Council of Ukraine passed an order On Registering Acts of Civil Status in Western Ukraine, preparing the seizure of church registers from priests.

April 15: 1950. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR issued an order according to which exiled OUN members were to remain exiled forever.

1994. At the Moscow summit of CIS member states Ukraine joined the Treaty on the CIS Economic Union as an associate member.