#e <t>battle<n>French & Norwegian troops capture Narvik<d>1940 May 28<c>Narvik<vic>Norway
#e <t>battle<n>Germans capture Narvik<d>1940 Jun 8<c>Narvik<vic>German
#e <t>massacre<d>1940 Apr 30(10)<c>Smolensk<n>Katyn massacre<info>The Katyn Forest, west of the Russian city of Smolensk, was the site of the extermination in late April or early May 1940 of more than 4,000 Polish army officers by Soviet security forces. After the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on August 23, 1939, German forces occupied western Poland while Soviet troops simultaneously occupied the eastern half. Soviet forces captured and interned approximately 250,000 Polish soldiers and officers. After Hitler abrogated the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in May 1941, the Polish government-in-exile in London made an agreement with the USSR to form a Polish army in the Soviet Union to fight the Nazis. After Polish prisoners were released from detention and mustered into military units, however, it was found that there were few officers among them. An estimated 15,000 officers were missing. German troops advancing into the Smolensk region in April 1943 discovered mass graves of 4,443 victims in the Katyn Forest. When the discoveries were publicized internationally, the Soviet government declared that the Polish victims had been murdered by the Nazis. As evidence mounted, however, that the massacre had been carried out by Soviet rather than German units, the Polish government-in-exile broke relations with the USSR. The fate of the remaining 10,000 Polish officers is still unclear, though it is believed that many of them perished in Siberian labor camps during and after World War II. The facts about the Katyn massacre were a source of continuing bitterness after World War II, although the Communist government in Warsaw gave its official acceptance to the Soviet version of events. In 1987, however, Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the establishment of a joint Soviet-Polish commission to investigate the matter. In March 1989 the new non-Communist government of Poland announced that the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, had been responsible for the massacre. In April 1990 the Soviet Union finally acknowledged that its own security forces had indeed been responsible.<ref>Grolier
#e <t>battle<n>Battle of Britain<d>1941 Jun 20<e>1941 Oct 31<c>Britain
#e <t>battle<n>Pearl Harbor<d>1941 Dec 7<c>Honolulu
#e <t>treaty<d>1963 Aug 5<n>Limited Test Ban Treaty<info>This treaty was signed by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. It bans tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere or in space.
#e <t>treaty<d>1968 Jul 1<n>Non-Proliferation Treaty<info>signed by U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R.
//1970s
#e <t>coup<d>1973 Sep 11<n>Pinochet topples Allende<c>Chile<info>Pinochet topples Allende in a bloody military coup.
#e <t>exp<d>1974 May 18<n>India detonates its first atomic bomb<c>India<info>India became the sixth nuclear nation.
#e <t>crash<d>1977 Mar 27<n>Tenerife crash<c>Canary Islands<info>This was the worst airline disaster in history. 583 were killed.
#e <d>1979 Nov 4<e>1981 Jan 20<n>American hostages held in Iran<c>Tehran<info>52 American hostages were held captive in the U.S. embassy for 444 days by militant students. After one failed attempt to rescue them, they were released in the end.
#e <t>battle<d>1979 Dec 25<n>Soviet forces enter Afghanistan<c>Afghanistan
// 1980s
#e <t>crash<d>1980 Apr 24<n>U.S. attempt to rescue hostages fails<c>Iran
#e <t>crash<d>1983 Sep 1<n>KAL Flight 007 shot down<c>Sea of Japan<info>Korean Air Lines flight 007 is shot down after crossing into Soviet airspace.
#e <t>disaster<d>1984<n>Bhopal poisoning<c>Bhopal
// 1990s
#e <t>war<d>1994<n>Rwandan civil war<c>Rwanda
#e <t>bombardment<d>1996 Apr 18<n>Qana massacre<c>Qana<info>100 die in artillery barrage.
#e <t>explosion<d>1998 May 11<n>India tests 3 nuclear bombs<c>India
#e <t>bombing<d>1998 Aug 15<n>Omagh bombing<c>Omagh<info>This bomb was set off by a splinter group who called themselves the "Real IRA."
#e <t>financial<d>1999 Jan 4<n>Euro begins trading<c>Europe<info>After its official introduction on January 1, 1999, Europe's new united currency begins trading on Monday the 4th.
