site.btaToday's Observances: August 5-6

AUGUST 5

The world:

- Victory Day in Croatia.

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1918: Diplomatic relations established with Finland at legation level. Upgraded to embassy level on February 1, 1963.

1920: Compulsory labour service is introduced by Alexander Stamboliyski Government.

1946: Youth brigade movement begins with 2,000 youths starting road construction in Hainboaz Pass (Balkan Range).

1947: Bulgarian Agrarian National Union activist Nikola Petkov goes on trial on charges of plotting coup. Executed on September 23, 1947. Rehabilitated on January 16, 1990.

1958: Ancient ruins near Pliska, Madara and Preslav are designated archaeological reserves.

1998: Emil Kostadinov and Ignat Nikolov become first Bulgarian mountaineers to climb Mt Eiger in Swiss Alps (3,970 m) along Northern Face, aka "Murder Wall."

AUGUST 6

The world:

- Hiroshima Day. World Day for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons;
- National Day of Bolivia: Independence Day (1825);
- National Day of Jamaica: Independence Day (1962).

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1915: Bulgarian graphic artist Stefan Kanchev is born (dies August 22, 2001). In 1994 he is recognized as one of world's ten best masters of logos by International Trademark Centre in Ostend, Belgium.  

2007: Torrential rain swells Hlebarovska River, which floods town of Tsar Kaloyan (Northeastern Bulgaria). Precipitation totals 291 l/sq m in 24 hours, equal to country's semiannual average.

2007: It is announced that a team of astronomers at Lowell Observatory, Arizona, led by Bulgarian Georgi Mandushev, have discovered largest known planet in universe, dubbed TrES-4 (in constellation Hercules, 1.7 times size of Jupiter).