Eighty Years Ago

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This image is taken from Soviet footage in the city of Lviv, made on the 28th of September, 1939. The communists parade through the streets following a successful invasion. Lviv, in Ukraine, changed from Polish to Russian governance at this time.

Control of western Ukraine changed hands a number of times during the Second World War. It was the site of the beginning of the Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

1940 Soviet stamps celebrating the 1939 “liberation” of Ukrainian and Belarusian people from the Polish regime.

At the end of the war, world leaders including British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were responsible for the region falling behind the so-called Iron Curtain, trapping ethnic Ukrainians in the USSR.

Today, Lviv is one of Ukraine’s most patriotic cities.

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Sixty Years Ago: a Ballet Rehearsal in Amsterdam

The newly established New Amsterdam Ballet in rehearsal under the direction of Mascha ter Weeme. 24th September 1959.

Two years later the company would merge with Nederlands Ballet to form today’s Dutch National Ballet, directed by Sonia Gaskell until 1969.

On this day…

This is the 21st September edition of New York’s Sunday News from 1958, announcing that US civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been stabbed in the chest the day before, at Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem.

The attacker was a woman named Izola Curry, and the crime surprised many as she was African American.

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Surgery was required to removed the knife, and King stayed in hospital for almost two weeks.

On this day: Australians in Borneo

17th September 1945: Soldiers of the Australian 2/31st Battalion pass through Bandjermasin in Borneo as they take responsibility for the island after the surrender of Japan in the Second World War. It was reported they were given an enthusiastic welcome by the locals.

The island of Borneo was under Japanese occupation from the end of 1941. Bandjermasin is now part of Indonesia.

From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Fifty-Four Years Ago

Here’s a picture of “baby ballerina” Suzanne Farrell of New York City Ballet, mid-pirouette while on tour in Amsterdam fifty-four years ago. 25th August 1965.

Farrell’s autobiography is Holding On to the Air.

On this day…

5th August 1935: Workers at a Canning Plant in Kent, Washington State, USA.

During the 1930s (through the Great Depression) the city was called “The Lettuce Capital of the World”.

On this day: British Troops in France

British soldiers head off to fight in Operation Goodwood in Normandy, France, on the 18th of July, 1944. Second World War.

The offensive took place between the 18th and 20th, and resulted in 3474 British casualties and the loss of 314 British tanks.

From the collection of the Imperial War Museum.