For the Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, began. In one of the largest battles ever fought up to that time, some 750,000 Japanese and Russian soldiers engaged in the battle for Mukden in the Russo-Japanese War. The 3-week battle pitted 400,000 Ja
World War I breaks out in the Balkans, pitting Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, USA and Japan against Austria, Germany and Turkey (400,000 Russian soldiers die in 1914 alone)
Bending to riots by women, striking workers and defecting soldiers, Czar Nicholas II abdicates, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty ("february revolution")
The civil war ends with Lenin's victory (millions have died of starvation, the population of Petrograd has dropped from 2.5 million in 1917 to 0.6 in 1920)
Stalin's main advisor, Sergei Kirov, is assassinated, prompting Stalin to begin the "great purge" of the Communist Party (thousands of communists are deported to "gulags")
Apollo 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a mission to test the lunar module. It carried astronauts James McDivitt, Russell Schweickart and David Scott and made 151 Earth orbits over 10 days.
