1649
Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyy signed the treaty of Zboriv. Khmelnytskyy, who had been leading a revolt against the Catholic Polish crown since the year before, had managed to surround King Jan Casimir's army of 25,000 as it came to the rescue of another Polish force of 15,000 holed up at a castle. The hetman's army of 80,000 consisted partly of Tatar troops under Khan Islam Girei, who, fearing the growing strength of the Cossacks himself, took a bribe from the Poles and forced Khmelnytskyy to make a negotiated settlement. The Zboriv treaty gave the Cossacks Kyiv, Chernihiv and other concessions, but most Ukrainian peasants were required to return to servitude, while Polish noblemen were allowed to reclaim their estates. Neither side turned out to be happy with the agreement, so fighting continued the next year.
1855
"...after eleven months of fighting against an enemy that was twice as strong, now came the order to leave this place without doing any more battle. This order was not comprehensible to every Russian, and the first impression of it was bitter and heavy ... After walking across the bridge, almost every soldier took off his hat and crossed himself. Behind this feeling there was still another one, heavy and gnawing. It was a feeling of regret, shame and anger. Practically every soldier who turned and looked back at Sevastopol, which had been evacuated, sighed with an unfathomable bitterness in his heart and shook an angry fist at the enemy." Leo Tolstoy, writing during the Crimean War.
1932
Joseph Stalin's forced collectivization is under way in Soviet Ukraine, and shock brigades are searching the countryside for hidden stores of food and grain.
A law is passed making the stealing of state property punishable by firing squad or deportation. Three weeks later, a decree is issued labeling the carrying of loaves of bread as speculation.
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