On January 14

On this day in ...

... 1972, the woman born Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid (prior post) ascended the throne to become Queen Margrethe II of Denmark (left). Despite the "II," it had been quite a while since a Danish monarch bore her name. Indeed, none had been named anything other than Frederik or Christian since 1513 (for good measure, her son, the Crown Prince, is named Frederik André Henrik Christian) -- and none had been a woman since the death in 1412 of Margrethe I, regent and the current queen's namesake. (photo credit)

... 1994 (15 years ago today), in Moscow, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed a Trilateral Statement and Annex. The agreement included U.S. promises to aid the latter 2 countires, as well as promises by all 3 to continue to work to reduce nuclear arsenals, in part by deactivating nuclear warheads in Ukraine (right).

On September 21

On this day in ...

... 1993 (15 years ago today), The President of Russia (flag at right), Boris N. Yeltsin, dissolved the legislature on the ground that "its large number of Communist[s] had paralyzed his reforms and his ability to govern." In return for that contra-constitutional act, the legislature's Supreme Soviet "voted by an overwhelming margin to depose Mr. Yeltsin and ordered security forces not to obey him." Political violence would roil the country for weeks. Yeltsin emerged the victor.

... 1981, Belize gained full independence from Britain, which in 1840 had claimed it as "British Colonial Honduras" in 1840. Today the Central American country (map at left), about the size of Massachusetts, is sparsely populated, with 314,000 people.