According to the first Soviet-time census conducted in 1926,
there were 147 million of people living in the Soviet Union 82 percent
of whom were rural residents and 18 percent lived in the cities.
On March 20 of 1926, Chiang Kai-shek took over the leadership
of the Kuomintang, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party. Chiang's
succession pitted the Kuomintang ever stronger against the Communists and
their Soviet military advisers.
In the same year, Prince Regent Hirohito succeeded to the Japanese
throne. During his record 63 years in power, Emperor Hirohito became the
first Japanese monarch to leave the country, obtain a profession (in marine
biology) and to sign his country's unconditional surrender to a foreign
army. After Japan's surrender in the wake of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 1945, the occupying powers permitted Hirohito to continue
as emperor and even to hand over power to his son, Prince Akihito who still
rules the nation.
The year 1926 gave birth to still another political old-timer,
the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has been running his Caribbean island
state for about forty years now. An avowed Communist, Fidel Castro came
to power at the head of the 1959 revolution which uprooted the pro-American
dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista and made Cuba the only country
in the Western Hemisphere to embrace non-capitalist ideology aimed at building
a communist society.
The famous film actress Marilyn Monroe was also born in 1926.
As a young girl, she quickly shot to stardom after appearing in several
hilarious and hugely successful comedies. During the Fifties Marilyn Monroe
became America's sex symbol. Her third husband, the outstanding dramatist
Arthur Miller wrote the script of her last movie. At 36, Marilyn Monroe
killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills.
The year 1926 witnessed the death of three great men who died
in their mid-seventies. In Russia it was the legendary General Aleksei
Brusilov who fought valiantly during World War One. After the October revolution,
Brusilov quit military service, stayed away from politics and turned down
his fellow generals' offer to spearhead a counter-revolutionary movement.
In Belgium, the famous American inventor John Moses Browning,
known for his work on small arms and automatic weapons, suddenly died on
November 26 while on a business trip. Many of his weapons, including machine
guns, automatic pistol and rifles were adopted and widely used by the US
and many other armies throughout the world.
Spain bid farewell to its leading architect Antonio Gaudi whose
fluid lines and original art nouveau constructions reached their highest
expression in Barcelona. The city's Church of the Holy Family whose construction
started in 1883 has since become the symbol of the capital of the Barcelona
province.
1926 was the beginning of the Daimler-Benz company which has
since grown into one of biggest and most respected carmakers in the world.
Also in 1926 the Scottish electrical engineer John Bird discovered the
fiber optics, invented the radar and infra-red operated night-vision gear.
The year before, John Bird organized public demonstrations of televised
transmissions he also helped to develop.
And before we're finished, let's talk about the two touching
things that happened in 1926. It's hard to believe it, but it was exactly
then that the English humorist and children's storyteller Alan Alexander
Milne invented the plush darling of millions of kids the world over, Winnie
the Pooh, as the main character of a popular book of children's stories
about the author's son, Christopher Robin and his animals - "Pooh",
"Piglet", "Kanga", "Roo" and "Eeyore".
In the United States, a monument was erected to the no less popular
literary characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It's a great pity
that their author, Mark Twain never lived to enjoy the well-deserved adoration
of his fans. What makes Mark Twain's books so special is that his characters
always bring to mind living people ...
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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