July 16 is celebrated in Ukraine as the Day of Adoption of the Declaration on State Sovereignty and the Day of the Accountant and Auditor, and in the world – World Snake Day and World PR Specialist Day. The historical events of this day in different years make up a mosaic of human discoveries, religious breakthroughs, technological breakthroughs and political decisions that have influenced the present.
The day of adoption of the Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine
This day is a key historical event that laid the foundation for the state’s full independence. On July 16, 1990, the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR adopted a document declaring the political, economic, cultural and ecological independence of Ukraine. For the first time, it was legally recorded that Ukrainian laws have priority over Union laws, that Ukraine has the right to its own currency, armed forces, foreign policy, information space and citizenship.
The declaration outlined the territorial integrity of Ukraine and declared that all natural resources, land, subsoil, air space and water resources are the property of the people of Ukraine. With this document, the state took the first official step towards separation from the USSR, although it was not directly about leaving the Union. The political significance of the declaration lies in the fact that it prepared the legal and social basis for the declaration of independence on August 24, 1991. It changed the nature of Ukrainian statehood, giving a start to the creation of independent institutions — the diplomatic service, the defense system, and its own legislation.
Certain provisions of the declaration began to be applied in practice immediately after its adoption, in particular, the opening of the first foreign representative offices of Ukraine in Canada, Poland and the USA. Already a year later, the document ceased to be declarative: after the failure of the August putsch in Moscow, Ukraine began to formalize full-fledged statehood.
Interesting facts
38 deputies voted against the declaration. This means that even in the summer of 1990, the parliament was not unanimous – the Soviet nucleus in the Council was active until 1991 itself.
A number of provisions of the declaration, such as the right to own armed forces, were initially interpreted as declaratory, but after a year they became the basis of real actions: after the August coup of 1991, institutions of an independent state began to be created in Ukraine.
The first drafts of the declaration were written on the basis of similar documents of Lithuania and Estonia. The group of authors included Levko Lukyanenko, one of the most famous Ukrainian dissidents, a former political prisoner, who made the declaration as decisive as possible.
Already in 1990, Ukraine opened its first independent representative offices abroad — in Canada, Poland and the USA, even before the official declaration of independence. This became possible thanks to the declaration.
The provisions on environmental safety laid out in the declaration made it possible to start public criticism of the USSR for the Chernobyl disaster in the parliament of the Ukrainian SSR – until then, the topic was controlled by the special services.
Despite the adoption of the declaration, during 1990–1991, a significant part of the Union legislation continued to be applied in Ukraine, only the Act of Independence of 1991 finally cemented the gap with the legal field of the USSR.
Accountant and Auditor Day in Ukraine
This is an annual professional holiday celebrated on July 16. It unites representatives of two related but different areas — accounting and auditing. The date was not set by chance: it was on July 16, 1999 that the Law “On Accounting and Financial Reporting” was adopted in Ukraine, which laid the foundation for the modern system of accounting and transparency of financial information.
An accountant in the modern sense is a specialist who is oriented in financial legislation, has analytical thinking, is able to identify financial risks, ensure the accuracy of calculations, prepare reports, which are then checked by an auditor. The auditor, in turn, performs independent verification, confirming the reliability of reports, which is a key element for trust in business, investors and the state.
Today, these professions cover a wide range of tasks: from tax planning to participation in court proceedings, from optimizing business processes to assessing the economic sustainability of enterprises. The work of accountants and auditors requires not only accuracy, but also intuition, attention to detail, discipline and ethics. This often gives rise to the idea of “creativity in numbers” – in complex and unpredictable situations, they find non-standard, but legal solutions.
Interesting facts
In the 1990s, accountants of large enterprises in Ukraine had to keep three parallel accounts: one for tax purposes, the second for management, and the third for “real”. Formally it was illegal, but in practice it often saved the company from bankruptcy.
The first Ukrainian accounting computer programs were created by enthusiasts without economic education. Often they did not have an interface – instead of buttons, there were key combinations that only certain specialists knew. Instructions were passed from hand to hand.
During tax audits in the 1990s, accountants prepared “special” versions of documentation. The most experienced had separate sets of reports “in case of the arrival of the SBU”, “in case of an inspection from Kyiv”, “in case of an audit by local authorities”.
In some accounting departments in the 1990s, there was a “night accountant” position, a person who, after the end of the work day, manually rewrote reports on new forms, taking into account management edits or “time requirements”. It was an illegal but common format.
In the 2000s, there were cases when accountants disappeared along with a seal, electronic keys and a database. In some regions, this became the basis for the appearance of an unofficial practice – the manager had copies of all accesses “just in case”, not fully trusting any specialist.
Some auditors in Ukraine deliberately chose to work at night so as not to cross paths with company employees who could exert pressure or try to adjust to the audit. In the reports of such inspections, unexpected data often appeared, because no one had time to “clean up” everything.
In the 2020s, there were cases where young accountants with strong Excel, SQL or Power BI skills earned more than the small business executives they served. It is not advertised, but there are real examples.
World Snake Day
The day is celebrated as a way to draw attention to the importance of snakes in natural ecosystems, and to dispel the fears, superstitions and myths that have plagued these animals for centuries. Although many associate snakes exclusively with danger, in fact most are non-venomous and vital for controlling rodent populations, maintaining the balance of food chains, and even for medical research.
Snakes live on almost all continents except Antarctica. There are more than 3,500 species in the world, and only about 600 of them have venom that can be dangerous to humans. However, instead of destroying these animals, ecologists call for studying them and respecting their place in nature. Many species of snakes have become endangered due to deforestation, burning of grass, climate change and mass killing by people who do not understand their role.
Interesting facts
In medicine, snake venom is used to create medicines: in particular, drugs were synthesized from viper venom to reduce blood pressure and relieve pain in cancer.
In some regions of India, more than 50,000 people are bitten by snakes every year, but snakes play an important role in religious ceremonies – they are worshiped as sacred animals.
The longest poisonous snake in the world – the king cobra – can grow up to 5.5 meters and, despite its name, avoids conflicts with people.
There are 11 species of snakes in Ukraine, of which only three are poisonous (vipers), and only one species can be dangerous for humans – the common viper. But fatal cases are extremely rare.
Snakes never blink: their eyes are covered with transparent scales that are renewed during shedding.
In many ancient cultures, the snake was not a symbol of evil, but of wisdom, renewal and immortality, from the Aztecs and the ancient Greeks to the peoples of Southeast Asia.
World Day of PR specialist
This holiday is not established by any international or state acts, but has become popular among communicators, media specialists and employees of PR agencies as a symbol of recognition of their professional role in the modern information society.
The date coincides with the publication of the first ever official press release: on July 28, 1906, Ivy Lee, who is considered one of the founders of PR, issued a press release about the Pennsylvania Railroad mine accident. He was the first to apply the principle: to tell the truth immediately and directly. This step changed the attitude towards communications: instead of silencing or manipulation, there was openness and control over the formation of the public image.
Modern PR specialists work with publicity strategies, brand reputation, anti-crisis campaigns, media planning, promotion in social networks, influencing the tonality of the information field. Their work is almost always in the shadows, but has a direct impact on how people perceive events, companies or personalities.
Interesting facts
The first person to use the term “public relations” was US President Thomas Jefferson back in 1807. He used the term in a message to Congress, even though PR did not yet exist as a profession.
In 1923, the first book on PR was published – “Crystallizing Public Opinion” by Edward Bernays. He was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and actively used psychoanalytic ideas in product promotion and political campaigns.
In the 1930s, Bernays designed a campaign for Lucky Strike to get women to smoke in public. It happened for the first time at a parade in New York: actresses came out with cigarettes, calling them “torches of freedom.” It is considered one of the most influential PR cases of the 20th century.
In the USSR, PR as a profession did not officially exist — instead, it was handled by “propaganda departments” or “public relations departments of state institutions.” Only after 1991 did the first private agencies with real PR services appear.
PR is constant work with informational tension, contexts, crises, hates, loyalty, pace of delivery. And that is why every good communication specialist is a strategist, analyst and diplomat at the same time.
Historical events on this day
622 – the beginning of the Muslim calendar. On this day, the Prophet Muhammad left Mecca and went to Medina, an event known as the Hijra. It was she who became the starting point of the Islamic era and the symbolic beginning of the foundation of a new religious civilization.
1054 – the Christian world was finally divided. As a result of dogmatic disputes and the struggle for influence, the Great Schism took place: the Western Church established itself as Catholic with its center in Rome, and the Eastern Church as Orthodox with its center in Constantinople. This conflict has not yet been resolved.
1439 – a strange but serious ban was introduced in England: against the background of the outbreak of the plague, kissing was banned. It was one of the first attempts in history to officially regulate physical contact during an epidemic.
1643 – the Dutch navigator Martin de Vries discovered the island of Sakhalin for Europeans during a northern expedition in the Pacific Ocean. Over time, this strategically important region became the subject of disputes between empires.
1661 – the first European banknotes were issued in Stockholm. This was done by Stockholms Banco, ushering in a new era of financial transactions when paper money began to supplant metal coins.
1790 – The US Congress decided that the federal capital of the country will not be located within any state. This is how the District of Columbia was born – an administrative unit subordinated only to the federal government, where Washington would later appear.
1867 – the French gardener Joseph Monier received a patent for reinforced concrete. His discovery, which arose from the need to create strong pots for plants, later became the basis for the construction of modern skyscrapers.
1905 – Russia lost the southern part of Sakhalin after defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. The Portsmouth Treaty handed it over to Japan, and 40 years later, after the surrender of Japan in 1945, the entire island returned to the control of the USSR.
1909 – the Audi company was founded in Germany. It arose after a conflict between founder August Horch and previous partners: he could not name the new company by his own name due to legal restrictions, so he translated it into Latin – “horch” means “listen”, i.e. “audi”.
1918 – in Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks executed the former Emperor Nicholas II, his family and relatives without trial. This act symbolized the final break with the monarchy in Russia and the beginning of a new era of brutal political centralization.
1919 – The Ukrainian Galician army, unable to withstand the pressure of the Polish troops, was forced to retreat behind Zbruch. Galicia was lost, and the army moved to the territory of Trans-Dnieper Ukraine, where it later became part of the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
1945 – the first successful test of an atomic bomb — the Trinity test — was conducted at a test site in the state of New Mexico, USA. This marked the beginning of the nuclear era, which changed not only the course of the Second World War, but also the entire subsequent century.
1965 – the tunnel under Mont Blanc was opened, which connected Italy and France. At over 11 km long, it became one of the longest car tunnels in the world at the time and a symbol of technical cooperation in the Alps.
1990 – The Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine. For the first time at the official level, it was announced that Ukrainian laws have priority over the Union laws, and Ukraine strives for an independent foreign, economic and cultural policy.
2010 – the first Odesa International Film Festival opened in Odesa. The event has since become one of the most prominent film events in Eastern Europe, bringing together auteur cinema, industrial venues and discussions on new media.
2019 – the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” entered into force. The law obliged state institutions, the media, the service sector and officials to switch to Ukrainian as the main language of communication.
The world’s first test of a nuclear weapon
On July 16, 1945, at 5:30 in the morning, the world’s first nuclear weapon test was conducted in the United States. The event was codenamed “Trinity.” The explosion took place at the Alamogordo military training ground in the state of New Mexico as part of the secret Manhattan Project. They tested a plutonium bomb, which the developers themselves ironically named “Shutchka”. It was not just a test of a new weapon, it was an event that marked the beginning of the nuclear age.
In order to bring the test conditions as close as possible to combat ones, the bomb was installed on a 30-meter steel tower. This height corresponded to the approximate fall from the bomber, and therefore allowed a more accurate assessment of the impact of the explosion. As a result, a crater with a depth of 1.4 meters and a diameter of 76 meters was formed at the site of the explosion, filled with radioactive green glass, which was named “trinitite”. The shock wave reached more than 160 km, and the mushroom cloud rose 12 km in height and was seen at a distance of up to 320 km.
The Manhattan Project was led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves. To hide the true purpose of the work, a fictitious structure was created within the US Army Corps of Engineers — the Manhattan Engineering District, which officially had nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It was Groves who led this district and received the rank of brigadier general. More than 130,000 people participated in the development of the bomb, and the costs exceeded 2 billion dollars (tens of billions in today’s prices).
After the explosion, Oppenheimer, amazed at the scale of the creation, quoted lines from the Bhagavad-gita: “I became Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This phrase later became a symbol of the moral shock experienced by many scientists involved in the project.
The “trick” became a prologue to two more explosions – “Baby” and “Fat”, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The world saw for the first time the real consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, and from that moment global politics was never the same.
The Alamogordo landfill was first opened to visitors in 1953. Despite decades, the level of radiation in some areas still exceeds the natural background by ten times. In 1966, the site of the first nuclear explosion was added to the US National Register of Historic Places. A simple but profound phrase is engraved on the memorial to the victims of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima: “Sleep peacefully, the mistake will not be repeated.”
Prohibition of gambling in Italy
On July 16, 1923, Benito Mussolini, the leader of the Italian fascist state, issued a decree banning gambling throughout Italy. It included 59 gambling establishments, including the country’s most famous casinos. Their buildings came under the control of the state, and one of the most luxurious ones was turned into a Jewish ghetto. The argument of the regime was reduced to the fact that gambling corrupts the people, distracts from discipline and morality, which the fascist ideology sought to impose in society. It is significant that Mussolini categorically rejected all the requests of the Cabinet of Ministers to leave at least some exceptions. At the same time, he did not touch state lotteries – they were not just preserved, but also made the main legal channel of gambling, controlled by the government.
Mussolini was not naive and understood: the deep-rooted desire to play in Italian society cannot be eradicated completely. Moreover, he saw it as a source of income for the budget. That is why the concept of so-called “intercepting” casinos – gambling establishments located near the state border – was developed on the sidelines of the government. The idea was to prevent the flow of Italian money to foreign casinos — in Switzerland, France, Monte Carlo, Slovenia — and to create a legal but controlled alternative at home.
In 1927, the first such casino was officially opened in San Remo. It functioned under the guise of a cultural institution: theater performances and concerts were listed in the posters, although the main source of income was the game itself. In 1933, the Lampione enclave, located on the border territories that were in contact with the French sphere of influence, received permission for the gambling business. In 1937, the government allowed the restoration of the gambling tradition in Venice, the city where the first ever gambling house called “Ridotto” appeared in the 17th century.
These casinos had several common features. First, they all legally belonged to the municipalities of the respective cities, and not to private companies. Secondly, they were located exclusively in border areas, with an exact calculation – in which direction Italians most often went to play outside the country. San Remo was supposed to stop the flow of players to France. The Campione di Italia, an enclave inside Switzerland, was supposed to keep Italians from going to Swiss gambling houses. Saint Vincent controlled the route through the Mont Blanc tunnel. Venice — on the eastern flank — blocked the way to Slovenian establishments. It was a subtle strategy where prohibition combined with permission, but only in the right place and in the right way.
It is interesting that the very word “casino” comes from the Italian “casa” – “house”. The first gambling houses that appeared in Italy in the 17th century were indeed elite premises for a limited circle of customers. Later, they turned into commercial entertainment centers, which caused concern in authoritarian governments. Thus, despite the public ban, Mussolini actually created a unique model of controlled gambling, where the player’s impulses were not prohibited, but channeled to where the regime needed. It was an example of how even in a totalitarian state pragmatism prevailed over ideology.
The opening of the world’s only international private espionage museum
On July 16, 2002, the world’s only international private espionage museum opened in Washington. Its concept and expositions were developed by leading specialists in the intelligence environment from the USA, the British MI5, as well as former employees of the Soviet special services. Among the creators of the museum is Oleg Danylovych Kalugin, a former major general of the KGB of the USSR, who emigrated to the United States after breaking with the Russian special services. In 2002, he was convicted in absentia in Russia for treason.
The museum has the world’s largest collection of artifacts related to international espionage — more than 600 exhibits. The exhibition covers the key stages of espionage in history, demonstrating the work of famous agents, surveillance devices, cloaking devices, recruitment methods and information gathering techniques. A large part is dedicated to the work of the KGB – with documents, models, equipment and personal belongings of agents.
Visitors can not only look at the exhibits, but also try themselves in the role of a spy. In the museum, you can take a polygraph test, crawl through a ventilation shaft, find hidden “bugs” and try how they work, put on make-up, practice surveillance and stalking – all in an interactive format. There is a separate shop selling themed “spy” souvenirs.
Legally, a spy and a scout are different statuses. If a spy operates undercover, without a uniform and documents, he does not have the right to the status of a prisoner of war and is subject to criminal prosecution. In the past, spies could be executed without trial. At the same time, a soldier in uniform performing a reconnaissance mission on behalf of the armed forces is considered a spy and, if captured, is protected under international law as a prisoner of war.
The Chinese thinker Sun Tzu in ancient times emphasized the importance of spies for the security of the state. He believed that thanks to them it is possible to prevent internal disturbances and external threats. One of the rare original copies of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is also housed at the Washington Intelligence Museum.
