The cruiser Aurora never shelled the Winter Palace: on 25 October 1917 it fired a single blank shot as the signal for the assault.

1917

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The event

• October Revolution1917 · Petrograd. On 25 October (7 November) 1917 the Bolsheviks led by Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government and seized the Winter Palace. The world's first socialist state was born, and the seizure of power was followed by the Russian Civil War.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1916 The first countries to put their clocks forward for summer were wartime Germany and Austria-Hungary, on 30 April 1916.
• 1917 · 1983 Even after confessing, one of the Cottingley cousins would not fully back down.
• 1917 The 'sealed train' that took Lenin from Switzerland across Germany in 1917 was not truly sealed: passengers got off, for example to spend a night in Frankfurt.
• 1917 The October Revolution happened in November: 25 October 1917 in the Julian calendar Russia then used was 7 November in the Gregorian one, so the USSR celebrated 'October' every 7 November.
• 1918 The Spanish flu did not come from Spain.
• 1918 · 2012 The last veteran of World War I died in 2012, the year the Higgs boson was found.

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