A Non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that was agreed in August 1939. The two countries agreed not to attack - or help others to attack - each other. Secretly, they also agreed to a division of Eastern Europe between them.
Nazi-Soviet Pact
Fact of the Day
A wealthy early modern London merchant asked his agent to send him '2 or 3 apes' from Africa, but didn't write the 'r'. The order was interpreted as 203 apes, the first cargo of 80 of which arrived with the promise of more to come.
Quote of the Day
"If civilisation is to advance at all in the future, it must be through the help of women, women freed of their political shackles, women with full power to work their will in society.
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~ Emmeline Pankhurst
On This Day
1846 Scottish surgeon Robert Liston was the first European to use anaesthesia during an amputation. He could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes.
1898 Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
1937 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', the world's first full-length animated film, premiered in the USA
1946 A tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake killed at least 1,362 and left thousands homeless in Japan.
1967 Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, died in Cape Town, South Africa, 18 days after his operation.
1988 Pan Am Flight 103 exploded as it was flying over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed