Lithuania, by Ileta

Lithuania

Lithuania is a small country in Europe. The capital is Vilnius. The population is 3 million.

Money

Lithuania used to have Litas but they changed it into euros. They changed it 1^st of January 2015.

Tradition

In Lithuania they don’t celebrate Halloween, they celebrate Saint Day. They go to graveyards and put candles on them to remember the person who had passed away.

World War II

Lithuania military, known as the Forest Brothers, began guerrilla warfare against the Soviet forces as soon as the front passed over them in 1944, and continued an armed struggle until 1953. The core of this movement was made up of soldiers from the Territorial Defense Force who had disbanded with their weapons and uniforms and members of the Lithuanian Freedom Army, established in 1941. The underground had extensive clandestine radio and press. Thousands of people engaged in active and passive resistance against the Soviet authorities. The various resistance organizations eventually united under the Movement of the Struggle for the Freedom of Lithuania , issuing a declaration of independence in 1949 that would ultimately be signed into law by the independent Republic of Lithuania in 1999. The most famous of these partisans is probably Juozas Lukša (yo-zas luk-sha), author of several books during the resistance and the subject of a recent film.

While armed resistance ended in the 1950s, non violent resistance continued in various forms (e.g. through Lithuanians living abroad, the Catholic press, safeguarding local traditions and the Lithuanian language, the Sąjūdis (sa-ju-dis)movement, etc.), until 1991 when Russia recognized the independence declared by Lithuania on January 13^th, 1991.

                                                                                                             

Cold war 1991

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01:25 a.m. – Upon arrival in the vicinity of the TV tower, tanks start to fire blank rounds. This causes many nearby windows to shatter and lifelong hearing loss or deafness in some of the protesters.

·         01:50 a.m. – Tanks and soldiers encircle the TV tower. Soldiers fire live ammunition overhead and into civilian crowds gathered around the building. Tanks drive straight through lines of people. Fourteen people are killed in the attack, most of them shot and two crushed by tanks. One Soviet Alfa unit member (Viktor Shatskikh) is killed by friendly fire. The youngest person died was only 21 years of age.