April 12 in Russian history

1861: The "Decree of foundation of the Alexander's hospital for the working people in St. Petersburg in memory of February 19, 1861" is issued.

1881: The emperor Alexander III proclaims freedom for all citizens to enter and leave Russia. This freedom was taken away again by bolsheviks and was restored again only in 1993 due to the efforts of president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev and Anatoly Sobchak, member of Duma and mayor of St. Petersburg. Now, some political groups, proponents of political isolation of Russia, demand to limit this freedom again.

1911: The first Russian aeronatical congress begins in St.Petersburg. It was organized by the VII (Aeronatical) department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society. Among the participants were the navy minister vice-admiral Grigorovich, admiral Rykachev, general-major Korsakevich, other navy officers, state and local self-government officials, members of technical and sports societies and clubs. At the same time, the aeronatical exhibition was taking place. The newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti" wrote: "Due to the extreme importance of aeronatics in general and especially for Russia, the aeronatical congress deserves the most serious attention." During the congress, the participants discussed certain models of aeroplanes and engines, promising technologies, technical solutions, importance of aeronatics for the Russian army and navy, organizational problems. The police, as usual, had their own opinion. They welcomed the development of the aviation and its use in the military, but they were also worried by possible use of aeroplanes in criminal and political purposes. They proposed to put aeroplanes and their pilots under surveillance and introduce registration of all pilots. In February, 1911, the police ordered the governors and mayors of the cities to close the aeronatical clubs if their aeroplanes were used by political activists to spread leaflets. In summer, 1910, the police refused to register the "Students' Aeroleague of St.Petersburg", saying that "the low membership fee may lead to the formation of a union of all students in St.Petersburg."

1961: At 9:07 a.m. (6:07 a.m. UTC), spacecraft Vostok was launched to space by carrier Vostok-K. This was the first manned space mission in history. Yuri Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth and safely landed at 10:55 a.m. (7:55 a.m. UTC). The USSR became the world leader in manned space flights. The advantage of the USSR was so huge that Russia still retains this leading position. Huge experience in long-term space missions, space medicine, construction and support of orbital stations, including cargo ships, simple and effective solutions allowed Russia to support the ISS during the years when the American space shuttles were grounded due to the tragedy with Columbia. By the way, recently some new articles describing Gagarin's flight were published. One such article from the magazine "News of Cosmonautics", "Truth about Gagarin's return" (in Russian), pedantically lists the problems taking place during the flight. During the backfire impulse, a valve did not close. The leakage caused unplanned loss of fuel. The lack of fuel made the engine to stop about 0.5 seconds earlier than it was planned and the spacecraft was flying with the speed of 132 m/sec instead of 136 m/sec. Because the engine was down, the control system failed to issue the shutdown command and the armature of the backfire engine did not fold as it should. This led to the rotation of the spacecraft with the speed of 30° per second and the landing module did not separate from the spacecraft. And yet, multiple reduplication of control systems and sensors provided alternative ways to initiate the separation. The heat sensors triggered the alternative separation procedure and the landing was normal. B. Raushenbach, a member of Russian Academy of Sciences, said once: "If cars were made with the same level of reliability as our satellites are made, they would have wheels from all sides and any spatial position of the car would be regarded as normal."

April 3 in Russian history

1933: The first kidney tranplantation was performed by Yuri Voronoy. Some sources give different dates, some even speak of the tranplantation being done in 1934 or 1936. His experiments started in 1929 and in 1930 he managed to transplant a kidney to a dog's neck. As the Ukrainian National museum of medicine reports:

Yu.Yu. Voronoy renounced the thought to take an organ from an alive man, since he thought that “one cannot make a healthy man invalid removing a necessary organ for the problematic saving of a patient”. He decided to use the kidney from a dead body. As we succeeded to establish, on April, 1933 (not in 1934, as it was informed in some sources, 1934 — is the year of publication of Yu. Yu. Voronoy’s work) the surgeon Yu. Yu. Voronoy made the transplantation of the kidney taken from a dead body. The recipient was a woman of 26 years, whose own kidneys did not function for 4 days because of acute poisoning with mercury biochloride. The donor’s kidney belonged to a man of 60 who died as a result of craniocerebral trauma, and was taken 6 hours after his death. ... She [the recipient] lived with the transplanted kidney more than 48 hours. Voronoy had every reason to think that the short-term transplant grafting (only during two days) does not compromise the kidney transplantation as the method of treatment under some forms of mercury biochloride poisonings. And what is more, he supposed that in case of dying off of the first implanted kidney, it is recommended to substitute it by a new, fresh kidney, i. e., he proposed the repeated transplantation. ... Yu. Yu. Voronoy outstripped for a long time the development of transplantology. Suffice it to say that clinical transplantations of the corpse kidney in most countries all over the world were made only in the 50–60’s of the 20th century. Professor Voronoy took part in development of other urgent trends of experimental and clinical surgery. He studied in detail the extremely important problem of the shock. But the problems of transplantology continued to remain the main ones in scientific activity of Voronoy. In 1950 he informed about 5 operations of the corpse kidney transplantation under severe nephrologic diseases.

1945: His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God, emperor of Ethiopia, transfers 10,000 pounds to the population of the USSR, suffering from the consequences of the Nazi occupation.

1945: The government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic decides to build a monument in Babiy Yar, a gully in Kiev, used by the Nazis as the place of mass executions. On September 27, 1941, 752 patients of a mental hospital were killed. On September 29-30, 33,771 Jews, almost whole Jewish population of Kiev, were executed. In October, 17,000 more Jews were killed there. Later, 621 member of the Ukrainian nationalist organization OUN were also killed. The executions were continuing till autumn of 1943, when the Soviet troops liberated Kiev. The total number of victims is not clear, various sources estimate it between 70,000 and 200,000 people. It is not clear why, but the monument was not built. Moreover, the authorities of Kiev preferred to make a dump in Babiy yar. In 1950, a wall was built and the gully was turned into a collector for liquid waste of nearby brick plant. In 1961, the wall fell and the mudflow destroyed a district of Kiev known as Kurenyovka. About 3,000 people died in this tragedy. In 1965 a granite stele was built. Only in 1976, on July 2, a monument was erected with the inscription: "To the Soviet citizens, soldiers and officers of the Soviet army, killed by fascists in Babiy Yar". Later, in 1990s, more monuments were built commemorating not all victims, but only certain groups of them: Jews, members of OUN, patients of the mental hospital, etc. There's also a cross erected in the memory of German prisoners of war.

1966: Soviet spacecraft Luna-10 becomes the first man-made object ever to orbit another celestial body. It enters the Lunar orbit and begins to collect scientific data using a spectrometer, a magnetometer and a number of other tools. Among other things, Luna 10 discovers a strange objects under the surface of the Moon, called 'mascons' (mass concentrations). On May 29, 1966, Luna 10 fell onto the Moon. On April 3, during the XXIII CPSU congress (BTW, it was the first congress where L.Brezhnev was the general secretary of the Communist Party), Luna 10 transmitted back to the Earth a sound record of L'Internationale.