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On This Day: Vladimir Lenin survives assassination attempt

On Aug. 30, 1918, Fanta Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, attempted to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Lenin, shooting him twice.

By UPI Staff
Vladimir Lenin makes a speech in the Red Square at the unveiling of a temporary monument to Stepaz Razin on May 1, 1919. On Aug. 30, 1918, Fanta Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, attempted to assassinate Lenin, shooting him twice. File Photo by Grigori Petrowitsch Goldstein/Wikimedia
1 of 3 | Vladimir Lenin makes a speech in the Red Square at the unveiling of a temporary monument to Stepaz Razin on May 1, 1919. On Aug. 30, 1918, Fanta Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, attempted to assassinate Lenin, shooting him twice. File Photo by Grigori Petrowitsch Goldstein/Wikimedia

Aug. 30 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 30 B.C., Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, killed herself following the defeat of her forces by Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.

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In 1780, Gen. Benedict Arnold betrayed the United States when he promised secretly to surrender the fort at West Point to the British army. He fled to England and died in poverty.

In 1918, Fanta Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, attempted to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Lenin, shooting him twice. He survived wounds to each shoulder, one of which pierced his lung.

In 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed in Japan to oversee the country's formal surrender at the end of World War II. MacArthur told United Press Japan's "punishment for her sins, which is just beginning, will be long and bitter."

In 1954, Hurricane Carol prompted evacuations along the North Carolina coast. The storm later battered states along the northern eastern seaboard and killed 72 people.

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In 1967, the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court was confirmed. Marshall was the first African American to sit on the court.

File Photo courtesy Library of Congress

In 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African-American astronaut in space.

In 1994, the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger that would create the largest U.S. defense contractor.

File Photo by Eco Clement/UPI

In 2003, more than 120 people, including prominent Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, were killed in a bomb attack on Iraq's Imam Ali Mosque.

In 2008, thousands of residents of Mexico City, Tijuana and other cities in Mexico took to the streets to protest an epidemic of drug-related killings and kidnappings and the Mexican government's apparent inability to stop them.

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In 2011, two senior U.S. Justice Department officials charged with overseeing the failed government gun-smuggling "sting" operation dubbed "Fast and Furious" were replaced amid bitter congressional criticism of the mission. The plan was to pass thousands of weapons to suspected Mexican gun smugglers and trace them to drug leaders, but hundreds of firearms were lost, some showing up at crime scenes, including the 2010 slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

In 2013, Northern Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney died in Dublin. He was 74.

In 2017, flooding and landslides from the monsoon season in Bangladesh, India and Nepal killed more than 1,200 people and affected 41 million people over the summer, the United Nations said.

File Photo by Jagadeesh NV/EPA

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