The year 1905 was very bad for Russia. The war with Japan had just ended with a humiliating defeat for the Russian Empire but this debacle, however, will never erase the memory of the Russian soldiers and sailors who fought so valiantly at the frontlines.
The heroic crew of the cruiser Varyag blew up their ship so that she would never fall into the enemy hands. The battleship Petropavlovsk hit a mine and sank taking down Russia's outstanding Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Stepan Makarov and the famous Russian painter of battle scenes, Vasily Vereshchagin. The disastrous course of the war seriously aggravated unrest inside Russia where people rallied in their thousands all across the country demanding political freedoms. The surrender of Port Arthur, followed by the loss of Mukden and the devastating defeat at Tsushima made Emperor Nicholas the Second accept the proffered mediation of President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States. Negotiations began in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 9th where Russia bowed to each and every demand made by the victorious Japanese. The wide-ranging public discontent caused by the humiliating defeat eventually led to the first Russian revolution of 1905.
On Sunday of January 9th, officially considered the start of the 1905 revolution, police fired on a 300,000-strong peaceful demonstration in front of the Winter Palace in St.Petersburg. It all began with the troops firing warning shots and then into the advancing crowd. The official death toll played the number of victims down to about 130 while the newspapers were writing about 2,000 dead bodies... That day went down in Russian history as the Bloody Sunday which triggered a new wave of revolutionary terror. The armed forces and the navy too proved not immune to the revolutionary unrest. The June 1905 mutiny on board the battleship Potyomkin became the first such anti-government revolt in the armed forces in decades. Shortly after, a similar mutiny happened on the Black Sea naval cruiser Ochakov... In December there was a mass uprising in Moscow where the insurgents used a tactic that effectively combined action by mobile groups and snipers aimed at demoralizing the government troops ill-equipped to fight in a big-city environment. They started erecting barricades in various parts of the city raising the specter of an all-out civil war. Fully aware of the danger, the government ordered the elite Semyonovsky regiment to move in from St.Petersburg and crush the rebellion. From that moment on, the insurgents' fate was sealed... Even though the 1905 revolution was fiercely crushed, Nicholas the Second finally agreed to issue a manifesto to the people granting them a number of fundamental political freedoms. The October 17th Manifesto was a major step forward on the way to making Russia a law-governed state. It promised to set up an elected legislature and instituted a permanent Cabinet. All those political concessions and reforms came too late, however, and the revolutionary sentiment, although stifled for the moment, still simmered on... In a separate, albeit very significant development, Norway finally won long-sought independence from Sweden which had ruled this Scandinavian kingdom since 1814. Norway is now a full-fledged member of NATO and the European community. In 1905 the world was saddened by the news of the death of the outstanding French writer Jules Verne. Jules Verne who had lived a long and fascinating life, is considered a founder of modern science fiction. The author of nearly 70 books, all permeated with noble-hearted romanticism, Jules Verne delighted young and old and his characters, like, for example, Captain Nemo, have since become household names the world over...
In the year 1905 the world-famous Alpine climbing brothers Abalakov were born in Russia. They scaled many a tall mountain in the Pamir Mountains in Central Asia and several 7,000-plus peaks no man had ever set foot on before. One of those mountains still bears the name of the daring brothers. And now a few words about two people who left a deep trace in the history of world cinema. Greta Garbo, the epitome of glamour on the screen, was born in Sweden on September 18th, 1905. At the age 20 she moved to the United States to work for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and quickly made it to the very top of Hollywood's dream factory. Garbo's best-remembered films are Mata Hari and Anna Karenina. Even though Greta Garbo withdrew from the entertainment field when she was only 36, she made cinematic history and is still remembered as one of the best actresses of all time...
The Oscar-winning American film actor Henry Fonda who played mainly in classic westerns, was born in the same year with Garbo. Henry Fonda was a many times winner of the academy's best-actor-of-the-year and other awards...
Those were the main highlights of 1905 prepared for you by
Vladimir Zhamkin.
    


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