On this day in ...... 1918 (90 years ago today), overnight, Bolsheviks executed the Russian royal family at Yekaterinburg. Four days later the New York Times reported that only "Nicholas Romanoff, ex-Czar of Russia," had been killed, and that "[t]he former Empress and Alexis Romanoff, the young heir, have been sent to a place of security." In point of fact, all 3, plus 3 Romanoff daughters, their physician, and 3 servants, were executed at the same time. Just yesterday, the Russian Orthodox Church called upon authorities to "state that assassination of the tsar family was a crime and condemn it in compliance with people's will." Meanwhile, Tsar Nicholas II and former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, are "neck and
neck," "battling ... for first place" in an online popularity contest. (credit for 1913 photo of Russian royal family)... 1945, "[a]t precisely 5:30 a.m." on a Monday in the New Mexico desert, "the nuclear age began" as the scientists of the Manhattan Project watched the 1st successful test -- named the Trinity Test -- of the atomic bomb.
