On the surface the pact guaranteed that neither side would fight against the other in war. However a ‘secret protocol’ also outlined how Eastern Europe would be divided between the two countries in the future.
Napoleon’s Grande Armée began its failed invasion of Russia when it crossed the Neman River in what Russians refer to as the Patriotic War of 1812.
The USSR and seven other European countries signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance better known as the Warsaw Pact.
The advancing Soviet troops met some resistance from remaining Nazi troops in the Polish city of Oświęcim, but by 3pm on 27 January 1945 they had captured the Main Camp and Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
German Nazi forces had invaded Poland two days earlier, claiming to be acting in self-defence following a ‘false flag’ operation.
Within two years up to 80% of the entire Polish workforce had joined Solidarity or one of its sub-organisations, and they regularly used strikes to achieve political change.
Officially called ‘On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences’, Khrushchev’s speech was a vehement denunciation of Stalin’s abuses of power and his creation of a personality cult.
On the 1st September 1939, German forces invaded Poland in a move that was to trigger the Second World War.
On 23rd August 1939, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop – the Soviet foreign minister and the German foreign minister – signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, otherwise known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
At around 11pm on the 20th August 1968, troops from the USSR, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary entered Czechoslovakia in an invasion that brought the Prague Spring to an end.
28th June 2015
11th November 2022
11th November 2022
1st September 2018
